For supporters of the Bush administration's crusade against civil liberties in its war on terror, today's rulings in the 2004 Madrid bombing case will no doubt provide more justification for detainee torture, the suspension of habeas corpus, military commissions and other clearly extra-constitutional measures. In Madrid today as in so many terrorism prosecution trials in the U.S., sometimes the suspects are not found guilty.

In Spain, the rule of law would appear to be alive and well. 21 of 28 suspects charged in connection with the March 11, 2004 train station bombings that killed 191 and wounded over 1,800 were convicted. The three lead suspects were found guilty of murder and attempted murder and were sentenced to up to 43,000 years in jail. (Spanish law bars the death penalty and apparently limits jail time to 40 years.) But the supposed mastermind, the Egyptian Rabei Osman, was acquitted despite the prosecution's wiretap evidence that he bragged about the idea for the 2004 terror attack.

The rulings in Madrid come hot on the heels of just the latest failed terrorism case for the Bush administration. Just last week, a mistrial was declared in Dallas in the prosecution against officials of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, an Islamic charity accused of providing millions of dollars to Hamas, the Palestinian group recognized by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization. Importantly, as the Washington Post noted:

"The government did not argue that Holy Land directly supported terrorist groups. Instead, prosecutors asserted that the charity provided money to committees in the West Bank and Gaza that were controlled by Hamas and, in doing so, created goodwill toward the militant organization, helping it recruit members."

But despite wiretap evidence that one of the defendants proclaimed a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv a " beautiful operation," federal prosectors were unable to convince the jury that the charity's funding of Hamas schools and medical clinics constituted material support for terrorism. Juror William Neal said of the case, which the FBI began pursuing in 1993 and only chose to prosecute after 9/11, that it "was strung together with macaroni noodles." (In the wake of the mistrial, the government will likely retry the group's leaders.) David Zaring, a visiting professor at Vanderbilt Law School, concluded:

"The difficulty the government has had in getting convictions in these cases suggests to me that there is something wrong with the process and the targets of the closures."

The Justice Department's failure in the Holy Land case is far from an isolated example for the Bush administration. As the New York Times documented last week:

From 1993 to 2001, prosecutors in Manhattan convicted some three dozen terrorists through guilty pleas and in six major trials.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the government's track record has been decidedly spottier, and its failure to obtain a single conviction on Monday in its terrorism-financing prosecution of what was once the nation's largest Islamic charity was another in a series of missteps and setbacks.

In the Bush administration's defense, the nature of many terrorism cases has changed since 9/11. Prior to 9/11, most terror prosecutions centered on acts of violence, such as the first World Trade Center bombing or the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa. In the post-September 11 environment, the Bush Justice Department has aggressively pursued cases focused on the less concrete charge of "material support" for terrorists. An article by Robert Chesney in the Lewis and Clark Law Review found that the government initiated 108 material support cases and completed 62, with 9 defendants convicted, 30 defendants pleading guilty, and 11 pleading guilty to other charges. As a result, according to another study by New York University Law School, "the government has a 29 percent conviction rate in terrorism prosecutions overall, compared with 92 percent for felonies generally."

Sometimes, the bad guys win. And for the Bush administration and its amen corner, that is clearly unacceptable.

All of which helps in part to explain the anti-terror legal regime followed by the White House. Judges and juries sometimes pose the inconvenient risk of acquittal. So suspected Al Qaeda members and allies are labeled "enemy combatants" and denied access to either the protections of the Geneva Convention or the America legal system. In the wake of the Supreme Court's Hamdan case, a new law ensured that Military Commissions can hear cases involving defendants barred access to attorneys and including evidence coerced using interrogations techniques amounting to torture. (The legal basis for those techniques, of course, rests on secret Justice Department memos and a 2005 presidential signing statement flouting a law passed by Congress.) And American citizens face the prospect electronic surveillance illegal under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) until its August revision by Congress.

The results are disturbing for defendants and the rule of law alike. Supposed "dirty bomber" and American citizen Jose Padilla was held in a Navy brig without legal counsel for three years, only to be tried and convicted on lesser charges in the wake of Hamdan based on testimony which may have been coerced from him. And just this morning,the New York Times reported on the trial of former Michigan prosecutor Richard G. Convertino, who along with a State Department security officer, is facing charges he "conspired to hide photographs that, if shared at the 2003 trial, might have undermined the case against four North African immigrants accused of being part of a terror sleeper cell."

The President's strategic assault on civil liberties and American law is supported by a linguistic campaign. As Glenn Greenwald documents in his devastating book, A Tragic Legacy, for President Bush and his allies there are no terrorism suspects, only terrorists. The effect for Republicans is to both play on Americans' fear of future of terrorist attacks while demonizing Democrats. For example, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell praised the Military Commissions Act for allowing accused terrorism suspects of being convicted on the basis of evidence they are prohibited from examining:

"I imagine it would be awkward for many of my Democratic colleagues to go home and explain a vote to provide sensitive, classified information to terrorists." [p. 252]

Greenwald also cited the statement of Florida Senator Mel Martinez:

Senator Mel Martinez said this about why he voted to deny habeas corpus to detainees in U.S. custody: "We must remember the detainees this law affects are terrorists." [p.253]

Those suspected of being terrorists may in fact be terrorists. Or, as juries have found in Madrid, Dallas and elsewhere in the United States, there's a chance they may not. But that's a chance the Bush administration increasingly is not going to take.

In his written responses to questions from Senate Democrats regarding waterboarding and other issues, Mukasey regurgitated Alberto Gonzales' 2005 assertion to Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) that "what we're really discussing is a hypothetical situation." In his formulation of the Gonzales evasion, Mukasey wrote the Senators today:

"Hypotheticals are different from real life and in any legal opinion the actual facts and circumstances are critical."

That response, of course, is almost comical on its face. As Rear Admiral John D. Hutson, a former Navy lawyer and dean of Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, N.H, remarked two weeks ago, "Other than perhaps the rack and thumbscrews, waterboarding is the most iconic example of torture in history."

The hypothetical torture dodge, of course, worked well for Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales, who was confirmed by 60-36 in February 2005. The jury is still out on Mukasey is still out. But if the opposition of Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is any indication, Michael Mukasey's path to the top of the Justice Department may be tortuous indeed.

For more on the eerie similarities between the statements to the Senate of Michael Mukasey in 2007 and his predecessor Alberto Gonzales in 2005, see "Deja Vu: Mukasey Channels Gonzales' 2005 Testimony," reprinted below the fold.

On Sunday, First Lady Laura Bush revealed a new side of her persona to the American people: policymaker. Describing herself "involved for a long time in policy," Mrs. Bush decried the Stepfordesque stereotype she claimed is applied to her. But given her past public statements and policy roles to date, Americans should be forgiven for chuckling in response.

The still popular First Lady made her comments during an attempt to defend the indefensible, her husband's veto of the expansion of the wildly successful and even more popular State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP). Mrs. Bush accused the Democrats of demagoguery, calling S-CHIP a "perfect issue" for bludgeoning the President:

"It's really easy to blame people for so-called voting against children."

Laura Bush then went on the make her surprising claim about her centrak role as policy maker in the White House:

"The fact is I've been involved for a long time in policy, and I think I just didn't get a lot of coverage on it. I was stereotyped as being a certain way because I was a librarian and a teacher...which are considered traditional women's careers."

As Stephen Colbert noted in 2006, "reality has a well known liberal bias." What Laura Bush sees as a stereotype is instead the appropriate reaction of the American people conditioned to the banality of what she says - and does.

For example, take the First Lady's penchant for diminishing the war in Iraq. As Perrspectives documented back in April, an out-of-touch Laura Bush was able to insult American troops and their families three times in under a year. Appearing on the Today Show, the First Lady in April offered the American people this shining nugget of detachment and tone-deafness:

"No one suffers more than their President and I do."

Laura Bush's shocking callousness today is hardly her first offense. In February, the First Lady cautioned Americans against being disheartened by the occasional blast in Baghdad:

"Many parts of Iraq are stable now. But, of course, what we see on television is the one bombing a day that discourages everybody."

That calming assessment was just the latest from the consistently upbeat - and seemingly medicated - First Lady. In May 2006, Mrs. Bush casually dismissed the consensus negative view of Iraq shared by the American people:

"I don't really believe those polls. I travel around the country, I see people, I see their response to my husband, I see their response to me...A lot of people come up to me and say, 'Stay the course.'"

But if Laura Bush can be forgiven for her casual disregard for the concerns of the American people (after all, it runs in the family), her role as self-proclaimed policy wonk rightly deserves the opprobrium it receives.

For the most part, the First Lady has been consigned to the backwater of Bush White House policy initiatives. Ironically, most of her symbolic roles reinforce her image as the mom/teacher. For example, President Bush during his 2006 State of the Union Address announced that his wife would head up something called the Helping America's Youth Initiative which encourages "caring adults to get involved in the life of a child." The year before, President Bush used the 2005 SOTU to proclaim that his wife would lead an anti-gang initiative. Using funds from the President's Faith-Based Initiative, the First Lady would help "bring hope to harsh places." As for brokering a peace deal between the Bloods and the Cripps, that apparently remains on her to do list. (As Jay Leno suggested, Laura Bush could rework Nancy Reagan's old tag line, "Just Say Yo.")

The one exception to Laura Bush's litany of symbolic tasks has been on HIV/AIDS. There, she has served as her husband's global ambassador on AIDS. While the United States has at least supported that effort with money, the results of her performance for AIDS victims and the health care professionals battling the disease haven't been pretty.

As I wrote in 2006, Laura Bush and the U.S. delegation to international AIDS conferences have been instrumental in blocking increased funding, removing language involving drug addicts, prostitutes and homosexuals and perhaps worst, perpetuating the dangerously counterproductive abstinence agenda demanded by the American religious right:

The typically smiling Mrs. Bush blithely ignored these and other controversies and contradictions central to the American policy of AIDS. The First Lady told the assembled delegates:

"In parts of sub-Saharan Africa, new data shows that Africa's ABC model of AIDS prevention has led to dramatic declines in HIV infection rates in young men and women...All people need to know how AIDS is transmitted, and every country has an obligation to educate its citizens. This is why every country must also improve literacy, especially for women and girls, so that they can make wise choices that will keep them healthy and safe."

But when it comes to the ABC's of AIDS (abstinence, be faithful, condoms), the United States seems to have forgotten the alphabet. Almost from its inception, Bush's $15 billion AIDS initiative PEPFAR (the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) has come with conditions attached. Bowing to the religious right, the White House has steered over $1 billion to religious groups stressing abstinence and undermining condom education and distribution programs. It's no wonder a defensive Laura Bush was forced to defend her husband's wildly unrealistic focus on abstinence during her last visit to Africa in January:

"I'm always a little bit irritated when I hear the criticism of abstinence, because abstinence is absolutely 100 per cent effective in eradicating a sexually transmitted disease."

Pioneering Ugandan AIDS activist Noerine Kaleeba could only ponder in amazement the effort led by the First Lady:

"I have met President Bush twice. He strikes me as a very brilliant, very passionate and very caring person. But when I contrast the President Bush that I have met with the policies and practices that are coming out of the United States, I can't reconcile it."

As it turns out, it is Laura Bush who can't seem to reconcile people's perceptions with her own self-image as a White House policy player. On this as in so many other areas, she is out of touch.

As it turns out, the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. The force of gravity still applies on planet Earth. And for at least this one day, a minimal standard of punishment for ethical wrongdoing applies to the Bush administration.

Just one day after I proclaimed that no official would pay a price for the despicable and shocking fake FEMA news conference on the California wildfires, the imbroglio has cost John Philbin, the agency's director of external affairs, a glamorous promotion. As the AP is now reporting, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence MichaeL McConnell has withdrawn its offer to Philbin to run its office of public affairs:

"We do not normally comment on personnel matters," DNI spokesman Ross Feinstein said Monday. "However, we can confirm that Mr. Philbin is not, nor is he scheduled to be, the director of public affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence."

Feinstein said earlier that Philbin's job change had been put on hold while McConnell reviewed his record.

Philbin's lost opportunity to become the PR flack for DNI McConnell should be just the down payment on the price he should pay for his key role in the FEMA disinformation campaign. Philbin, after all, had the cajones on Friday to pooh-pooh the dustup with this classic of Bush administration double-speak:

"It was absolutely a bad decision. I regret it happened. Certainly...I should have stopped it. I hope readers understand we're working very hard to establish credibility and integrity, and I would hope this does not undermine it."

As for McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence will have to turn elsewhere for assistance in crafting rationalizations for torturing detainees and perverting FISA to expand the domestic surveillance of Americans. With Philbin apparently out of the picture, the DNI will need to find a new PR stooge to perfect new deceptions and false claims, such as the bogus assertions that new FISA rules were central to breaking up the German terror plot or expanded surveillance powers are needed to prevent kidnappings of U.S. troops in Iraq.

And as for divine retribution against the Bush team for its myriad abuses of ethics guidelines and the law, well, for this one day God is in his Heaven and all is right with the world.

UPDATE: Yesterday, I noted that the prime examples of incompetence and duplicity in the Bush administration such as Paul Bremer, Tommy Franks and George Tenet generally receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom for their damage to the nation. Today, President Bush unveiled a new list of recipients and mercifully John Philbin wasn't on it. But former Illinois Congressman, right-to-life zealot and unfaithful critic of Bill Clinton's infidelity Henry Hyde was.

ThinkProgress speculates this morning that President Bush will give a recess appointment to James Holsinger, his bizarre and wildly homophobic nominee for Surgeon General. For the White House, Holsinger's quackery and desire to "cure gays" not only makes him a very attractive successor to the disagreeable Richard Carmona. More importantly, a recess appointment in the face of overwhelming opposition from the Senate Health Committee helps President Bush "ensure that I am relevant." It's just another part of George W. Bush's strategy of maximum confrontation guiding the remainder of his enfeebled presidency.

Maximum confrontation serves three purposes for President Bush. First, it is an essential ingredient in preventing Democrats from winning victories of any kind and claiming successes as they head into the 2008 elections. Second, perpetual conflict with the "Democrat" Party, whether over nominees, filibusters or vetoes, helps mobilize the President's hard right base. And last, as Robert Draper's new biography Dead Certain makes clear, the image of the battling, brawling President helps Bush cement his legacy as a man of resolve, unbending in the face of either opposition or reality.

With no reelection campaign to run, no vice president to protect and leading a party whose electoral strategy is to whip up the conservative base while suppressing Democratic and independent voter turnout, Bush will pay no price for his thirst for conflict. (His Republican allies in Congress, however, may be another matter.)

All of which suggests the disturbing logic behind the choice of an inflammatory, polarizing figure like Holsinger. For example, on the day of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' resignation, conservative movement godfather Richard Viguerie counseled President Bush, "Confront the Democrats, don't 'reach out' to them as liberal commentators are urging." In his vitriolic statement lamenting Gonzales' departure, Bush appeared to heed Viguerie's advice, decrying the "unfair treatment" that led to Gonzales' being "dragged through the mud for political reasons." While Bush ultimately opted against the conservative darling Ted Olson, the mounting opposition even from some Republicans to Judge Michael Mukasey makes it clear that the President intends to sticks to his guns on domestic surveillance and detainee torture.

As the history shows, George W. Bush only too happy to resort to recess appointments to ensconce extremist appointees like Kerry Swift Boater turned Ambassador Sam Fox or former UN ambassador John Bolton. After all, President Bush has already filled 105 positions with recess appointments, compared to just 42 for Bill Clinton by the same point in his presidency.

Bush's craving for conflict and endless obstructionism hardly ends with his predilection for in-your-face nominees. As Robert Novak detailed in June, Bush's veto strategy will define the remainder of his term. While Bush withheld his veto pen during a first term featuring a compliant GOP Congress, the President is promising a tidal wave of vetoes from here on out. Blocking stem cell research, federal spending bills, Iraq war benchmarks, expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), and government negotiation of Medicare prescription drug prices are just a few on the threats Bush has issued. His dander (and testosterone) up, a feisty Bush crowed in June:

"If the Democrats want to test us, that's why they give the president the veto."

In the Senate, Bush's Republican allies are working overtime to make sure it doesn't come to that. The same GOP who demanded the "up or down vote" in 2005 is now making unprecedented use of the filibuster to block Democratic initiatives - and victories - at all costs. Republican obstructionism blocked every major Democratic effort to change the course in Iraq and even stalled the Alberto Gonzales no-confidence vote. The Republican commitment to portraying Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi as leaders of a do-nothing Congress through the 208 elections ensures that the Democrats will need a filibuster-proof 60 votes to do anything. (President Bush's veto threats raise that bar to 67 votes.) As Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-MS) publicly bragged:

"The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail. So far it's working for us."

Even the Iraq debate reflects President Bush's endless appetite for political fireworks. During a 2004 debate with John Kerry, President Bush might as well have been discussing Democrats and not Islamic insurgents when he said, "best way to defeat them is to never waver, to be strong, to use every asset at our disposal, is to constantly stay on the offensive." His only concession to the reality of potential Republican devastation next November is the appearance of withdrawing U.S. troops beginning next summer.

No doubt, if President Bush gives James Holsinger a recess appointment, he will ignite a firestorm of angry confrontation with Democrats. Which is exactly what he wants.

One of the hallmarks of Bush administration has been its steadfast commitment to rewarding its own incompetence, fraud and even criminality. While Katrina fall-guy Michael Brown was quietly edged out, the leading architects of the fiasco in Iraq including George Tenet, Tommy Franks and Paul Bremer received Presidential Medals of Freedom. Now in the latest example of President Bush's mantra that "nothing succeeds like failure," Harvey Johnson has escaped punishment for his bogus FEMA press conference on Thursday, while his PR flack John Philbin is moving on to greener pastures at the office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Even by the standards of a Bush White House committed to using rented reporters, purchased pundits, rigged rallies, scripted sessions, fake news and pseudo-science to alter political debate and reality itself, FEMA's faux news conference was particularly ham-handed. Just a day after defending the White House's editing of a CDC report to Congress and praising the health benefits of global warming, Dana Perino claimed "It is not a practice that we would employ here at the White House or that we - we certainly don't condone it." Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Laura Keehner called Johnson's performance a "stunt" that was "inexcusable to the secretary."

The reaction of DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff is particularly telling - and comical. Chertoff, after all, told Americans in July he had a "gut feeling" that Al Qaeda would strike again in the U.S., just days before President Bush's interim Iraq surge progress report. Chertoff also played the blame the victim game as Hurricane Katrina swamped both New Orleans and his beleagured FEMA. "The critical thing was to get people out of there before the disaster," Chertoff said on September 1, 2005, adding, "Some people chose not to obey that order. That was a mistake on their part."

And yet even a bungler of historical proportions as Chertoff was moved to criticize (though not punish) his own FEMA team for its dalliance with staged news. As the Washington Post reported Saturday:

"I think it was one of the dumbest and most inappropriate things I've seen since I've been in government," Michael Chertoff said.

"I have made unambiguously clear, in Anglo-Saxon prose, that it is not to ever happen again and there will be appropriate disciplinary action taken against those people who exhibited what I regard as extraordinarily poor judgment," he added.

Asked specifically if he planned to fire anyone at FEMA, which is part of his department, Chertoff declined to say, citing personnel rules. "There will be appropriate discipline."

For his part, Admiral Harvey Johnson, the FEMA deputy administrator, offered the usual Republican unpology his premeditated effort to deceive the American people. In a statement Friday, Johnson reduced his agency's Goebbelsesque disinformation scheme to an ill-timed fart:

"We are reviewing our press procedures and will make the changes necessary to ensure that all of our communications are straight forward and transparent...We can and must do better, and apologize for this error in judgment."

Meanwhile, Director of External Affairs John Philbin, the PR point-man for Johnson's fraud, has resigned from FEMA to take on a new role at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. (His resignation apparently pre-dated Thursday's sham press conference.) With no apparent sense of irony, Philbin declared Friday:

"It was absolutely a bad decision. I regret it happened. Certainly...I should have stopped it. I hope readers understand we're working very hard to establish credibility and integrity, and I would hope this does not undermine it."

For his impersonation of Baghdad Bob, Saddam's former Minister of Information, Philbin wasn't shown the door, but instead got a move up the ladder. Philbin will now bring his skills to bear for Michael McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence. There, he can help his boss the DNI perfect new deceptions and false claims, such as the bogus assertions that new FISA rules were central to breaking up the German terror plot or expanded surveillance powers are needed to prevent kidnappings of U.S. troops in Iraq.

And so it goes with the Bush administration's ethos of rewarding wrong-doing. There are no firing offenses. The merely embarrassing or inconvenient, such as Michael Brown or Paul O'Neill, are quietly shunted aside. The actions are Bush loyalists are glossed over, as in the Johnson case, or as with prosecutor purge figure Sara Taylor, are rewarded with high-paying posts in reliably Republican lobbying firms. And for those who know the most and share responsibility with the President for the calamities most damaging to the United States, they get a medal from Bush himself.

Thursday marked the fifth anniversary of the death of Minnesota Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone. But while much of the liberal blogosphere has remembered Wellstone's fighting spirit, grassroots populism and prescient courage in opposing the war in Iraq, little attention has been paid to President Bush's despicable eulogy of Wellstone on that sad day.

As we learned five years ago, this president's smallness and partisanship even extend to the dead. Commenting on the tragic death of the popular Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone in an October 25, 2002 plane crash, this was the best Bush could muster for an opponent:

"Paul Wellstone was a man of deep convictions, a plain-spoken fellow who did his best for his state and for his country. May the good Lord bless those who grieve." [Emphasis mine]

Compare to that to his glowing words on June 27, 2003 for the late Republican Senator from South Carolina, the legendary racist and segregationist Strom Thurmond:

"Senator Strom Thurmond led an extraordinary life. He served in the Army during World War II, earning a Bronze Star for valor and landing at Normandy on D-Day. He served his country as Senator, Governor, and state legislator and was a beloved teacher, coach, husband, father, and grandfather. While campaigning across South Carolina with him in 1988, I saw first hand the tremendous love he had for his constituents, and the admiration the people of South Carolina had for him. He was also a friend and I was honored to have hosted his 100th birthday at the White House. Laura joins me in sending our prayers and condolences to the entire Thurmond family. He will be missed."

In 1994, President Bill Clinton spoke eloquently of the late Richard Nixon, a man who disgraced the White House and sought to subvert the Constitution. President George W. Bush apparently felt decorum required no such tribute for the incorruptible Paul Wellstone.

For more, see "The Smallness of King George."

Two stories this week once again highlighted for Americans the Potemkin Presidency of George W. Bush. Confronting Stephen Colbert's maxim that "reality has a well-known liberal bias," the Bush administration tried to pull the wool over the eyes of Congress and the media. On Wednesday, the White House acknowledged it "eviscerated" the testimony of CDC Julie Gerberding on the health impacts of global warming. And on Thursday, Bush's FEMA director Harvey Johnson staged a faux news conference about the California wildfires, complete with agency staffers posing as reporters.

No doubt anxious to avoid a repeat of the black eye over its calamitous bungling of the Katrina disaster, FEMA concluded that manufacturing stories for media consumption was preferable to actual accountability. As the Washington Post documented:

Reporters were given only 15 minutes' notice of the briefing, making it unlikely many could show up at FEMA's Southwest D.C. offices. They were given an 800 number to call in, though it was a "listen only" line, the notice said -- no questions. Parts of the briefing were carried live on Fox News, MSNBC and other outlets.

Johnson stood behind a lectern and began with an overview before saying he would take a few questions...He was apparently quite familiar with the reporters -- in one case, he appears to say "Mike" and points to a reporter -- and was asked an oddly in-house question about "what it means to have an emergency declaration as opposed to a major disaster declaration" signed by the president. He once again explained smoothly...

...Of course, that could be because the questions were asked by FEMA staffers playing reporters. We're told the questions were asked by Cindy Taylor, FEMA's deputy director of external affairs, and by "Mike" Widomski, the deputy director of public affairs. Director of External Affairs John "Pat" Philbin asked a question, and another came, we understand, from someone who sounds like press aide Ali Kirin.

Still, not everyone on Team Bush was on the same page when it came to avoiding the Katrina media disaster at all costs. Former FEMA head Michael Brown didn't get the memo, alerting the media earlier this week that he was available for press inquiries. And President Bush couldn't help himself, taking a break from his tour with Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to supposedly comfort the people of Southern California by instead taking a cheap shot at Louisiana's Democratic Governor, Kathleen Blanco:

"It makes a significant difference when you have somebody in the statehouse willing to take the lead."

Meanwhile back in Washington, the White House took its campaign of denying global warming to the Centers for Disease Control and the halls of Congress. The report of CDC head Dr. Julie Gerberding to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee fell victim to the heavy hand of the White House. Cut from 12 pages to 6, Gerberding's testimony was stripped of references to specific diseases and other health consequences from continued warming of the Earth. As the AP noted:

The draft noted that "scientific evidence supports the view that the earth's climate is changing" and that many groups are working to address climate change. "Despite this extensive activity, the public health effects of climate change remain largely unaddressed. CDC considers climate change a serious public health concern," the draft declares.

That paragraph was not in Gerberding's text as approved by the White House.

Referring to the draft, one CDC official familiar with both versions, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the review process, said that "it was eviscerated."

While Gerbering herself downplayed the intervention of the White House, this is far from the first time the Bush administration has doctored scientific reports and testimony. As I first detailed in April 2005 ("The Potemkin President"), From rented reporters, purchased pundits, and rigged rallies to scripted sessions, fake news and pseudo-science, an unapologetic White House has sought to alter public perceptions to control political debate - and reality itself.

The instances of media manipulation and outright fraud by the White House are simply too numerous to list here. The Bush administration paid "journalists" Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher for friendly coverage of the No Child Left Behind and new marriage initiatives. The Department of Health and Human Services distributed video news releases (VNRs) to peddle the President's Medicare drug program. The White House tried to block the release of Pentagon, NASA an other studies on the impact of global warming. The administration stonewalled decision by FDA career staffers to make the emergency contraceptive Plan B available for over the-counter sales. And former Surgeon General Richard Carmona found his report "Call to Action on Global Health" dead on arrival with Bush White House political commissars.

While his administration continues to erect its Potemkin facade to, in the President own words. "catapult the propaganda," George W. Bush is back to doing what he does best: scripted appearances before friendly, invitation-only audiences.

UPDATE: FEMA's press conference fraud was an affront so egregious that even members of the Bush administration denounced it. Just a day after defending the White House's editing of the CDC report and praising the health benefits of global warming, Dana Perino claimed "It is not a practice that we would employ here at the White House or that we - we certainly don't condone it." Meanwhile, Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Laura Keehner called Johnson's performance a "stunt" that was "inexcusable to the secretary." Apparently, DHS honcho Michael Chertoff had a "gut feeling" a staged press conference was a bad idea...

In Iowa yesterday, GOP frontrunner Rudy Giuliani followed Bush Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey in playing dumb on the subject of torture. It should come as no surprise that Giuliani would argue that whether waterboarding violates the Geneva Convention depends on what the definition of "torture" is. Even less surprising is that the same man who in May endorsed "every method they could think of" would now jokingly claim that he was a victim of torture himself.

Asked in Davenport, Iowa about torture and the enhanced interrogation techniques employed by the Bush administration, Giuliani mimicked Mukasey's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mukasey, as you'll recall, answered Senator Sheldon Whitehouse's question on regarding waterboarding by elliptically saying, "If it amounts to torture, it is not constitutional." On Wednesday, Giuliani followed suit. As the New York Times reported:

Asked at a community meeting here whether he considered waterboarding torture, Mr. Giuliani said: "It depends on how it's done. It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it."

He went on to say that the way the practice had been described in news reports - "particularly in the liberal media" - he did not believe it should be allowed. But he expressed doubts about whether it had been described accurately.

Perhaps sensing a departure from his usual tough on terrorism line, Giuliani turned the discussion back at the Democrats:

Mr. Giuliani also criticized the Democrats for describing sleep deprivation as torture. "They talk about sleep deprivation," he said. "I mean, on that theory, I'm getting tortured running for president of the United States. That's plain silly. That's silly."

Given his own checkered past as mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani might want to show a little more care when discussing the subject of torture. After all, in 1997 four renegade members of Giuliani's NYPD brutalized Abner Louima, assaulting him in their precinct and sodomizing him with a wooden stick. That was followed by the 1999 killing of Amadou Diallo, an innocent West African immigrant mistakenly gunned down in a 41 shot fusillade by New York police.

But even more problematic for Giuliani is that his unfortunate statements in Iowa contradict the tough talk on torture he offered during a May 15, 2007 GOP presidential debate moderated by Fox News' Brit Hume. Then, Giuliani made it clear he would resort to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods early and often to thwart a looming terrorist attack:

GIULIANI: In the hypothetical that you gave me, which assumes that we know there is going to be another attack and these people know about it, I would tell the people who had to do the interrogation to use every method they can think of. Shouldn't be torture, but every method they can think of.

HUME: Water boarding?

GIULIANI: I would say every method they could think of, and I would support them in doing that because I have seen - [applause] - I have seen what can happen when you make a mistake about this and I don't want to see another 3,000 people dead in New York or any place else.

The practice of torturing detainees by the government of the United States, of course, is no laughing matter. And as the former New York mayor once again clear, "Giuliani time" is no joke.

In Washington today, George W. Bush reinvigorated his counterproductive and anachronistic crusade against the Castro regime in Cuba. As the New York Times reports, President Bush used an address to an invitation-only audience of Cuban exiles to proclaim "the United States will not accept a political transition in Cuba in which power changes from one Castro brother to another." But while Bush's increasingly hard line may please his brother and the monolithically Republican Cuban community in Florida, his dangerously myopic posture undermines the economic, security and political interests of the United States.

While White House press secretary Dana Perino and an anonymous "senior administration official" claimed there was no significance to the timing of Bush's address, the 45th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis no doubt seemed an opportune moment to up the ante against the Castro regime. (Two of President Bush's three previous speeches on Cuba commemorated Cuban Independence Day in 2001 and 2002; the third in 2003 also came in October.)

Falling just short of calling for an insurrection by the Cuban people, the President's aggressive speech targeted Raul Castro, the likely successor to his older and infirm brother Fidel. As the Times previewed on Wednesday morning, the speech:

...will introduce the relatives of four Cuban prisoners being held for political crimes. A senior administration official said the president wanted to "put a human face," on Cuba's "assault on freedom."

In effect, the speech will be a call for Cubans to continue to resist, a particularly strong line coming from an American president. He is expected to say to the Cuban military and police, "There is a place for you in a new Cuba."

The official said Mr. Bush would make the case that for dissidents and others pursuing democracy in Cuba, little has changed at all, and that the country has suffered economically as well as in other ways as a result of the Castro rule...

...The administration official said Mr. Bush was expected to tell Cuban viewers that "soon they will have to make a choice between freedom and the force used by a dying regime."

Unfortunately for the American people, President Bush's escalating rhetoric comes as the threat from Cuba and the need for the 45 year old embargo fades into distant memory. Reprehensible though the communist Castro regime may be, the American policy of isolation and confrontation is a relic of a world which no longer exists.

Surely, Cuba presents no security threat to the United States. There are no Soviet nuclear missiles or brigades of troops on the island. Cuba's days as a Russian proxy are over; Cuban troops have been out of Angola for decades. Havana is not about to become a safe haven for Al Qaeda and Cuba is not going to join Venezuela and Bolivia in a new Axis of Evil.

Economically, too, the Cuban embargo, President Bush's tough travel restrictions and the onerous Helms-Burton law are counterproductive for the United States. U.S. companies and farmers could be the dominant players in a future Cuban economy. Instead, European firms are best positioned to benefit from trade and tourism in post-Fidel Cuba.

A quick tour of U.S. foreign policy highlights the hypocrisy of Bush's pandering to the Cuban exile community in the U.S. Communist China, for example, is likely the major security challenge for the United States in the 21st century. Yet the Bush administration encourages a policy of economic engagement with the rapidly militarizing Beijing, a country with which the U.S. now runs a trade deficit topping $200 billion and to which America is deeply in debt. As for decrying authoritarian nepotism, President Bush is quite content with Saudi Arabia, where the U.S. will always accept a political transition that passes power from one member of the House of Saud to another. (As for the claim that by some conservatives that Castro's Cuba is somehow analogous to apartheid-era South Africa, the 1959 disenfranchisement of Battista's backers in no way resembles the race-based oppression of most of South Africa's citizens.)

Just last month, President Bush rightly recognized the dangers inherent in the making the grievances of a powerful ethnic lobby the policy of the United States. But Armenians don't control the destiny of electoral politics in Florida. Ultimately, the prospect of true democratic change in Cuba may not be tied to the passing of Fidel Castro, but instead to the exit of George W. Bush.

As Fred Thompson's discussion of the Terri Schiavo case again highlighted this week, the so-called conservative "culture of life" contains a personal exemption. That is, when it comes to abortion, stem cell research and other such issues, the culture warriors of the right fervently oppose personal choice and potential medical breakthroughs - until they or someone they care about badly needs them. Then, as the likes of Fred Thompson, Tom Delay and Orrin Hatch show, the Republican mantra quickly becomes pro-choice for me, but not for thee.

Consider the case of Fred Thompson. Asked just last month about the 2005 Terri Schiavo controversy, Thompson (to the dismay of the American Taliban stalwarts like James Dobson) did what comes naturally and played dumb:

"I can't pass judgment on it. I know that good people were doing what they thought was best. That's going back in history. I don't remember the details of it."

As it turns out, Thompson's Gonzales-esque inability to recall the defining battle in the culture war of 2005 was an evasion. As the New York Times reported, Thompson on Monday revealed that in 2002 his family had faced a similar of end of life decision for his daughter Elizabeth, who never regained consciousness after an accidental drug overdose:

"Obviously, I knew about the Schiavo case. I had to face a situation like that in my own personal life with my own daughter. I am a little bit uncomfortable about that because it is an intensely personal thing with me. These things need to be decided by the family. And I was at that bedside. And I had to make those decisions with the rest of my family."

Complicating matters as he courts the so-called Values Voters who dominate the GOP primaries, Fred Thompson on Monday essentially agreed that Terri Schiavo's husband Michael was right all along:

"It should be decided by the families - the federal government and the state government too, except for the court system, ought to stay out of those matters as far as I am concerned."

While Fred Thompson is at least willing to grant that other families should have the right to make the most difficult, private and personal decisions impacting their lives, Schiavo inquisitor and former House Majority Leader Tom Delay would have none of it. It was Delay who led Congressional Republicans in calling for federal judicial intervention in the Schiavo case, a bill signed by President Bush on March 21, 2005. But when all courts state and federal consistently ruled in favor of Michael Schiavo, Delay issued a statement on March 31st threatening the judges involved:

"The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today. Today we grieve, we pray, and we hope to God this fate never befalls another."

But that fate had already befallen someone very close to Tom Delay: his own father. In 1988, Delay and his family chose to end life support for their 65 year old father, severely injured in a tragic accident:

"There was no point to even really talking about it," Maxine DeLay, the congressman's 81-year-old mother, recalled in an interview last week. "There was no way he (Charles) wanted to live like that. Tom knew, we all knew, his father wouldn't have wanted to live that way."

Doctors advised that he would "basically be a vegetable," said the congressman's aunt, JoAnne DeLay.

When the man's kidneys failed, the DeLay family decided against connecting him to a dialysis machine. "Extraordinary measures to prolong life were not initiated," said his medical report, citing "agreement with the family's wishes." His bedside chart carried the instruction: "Do Not Resuscitate."

On Dec. 14, 1988, the senior DeLay "expired with his family in attendance."

(In a further irony for the tort reform crusader Delay, his family filed a product liability lawsuit and later received a $250,000 settlement.)

And so it goes. Utah Senator Orrin Hatch is one the leaders of the pro-life movement on Capitol Hill. But when it comes to stem cell research, he parts company with his culture of life conservative colleagues in the Republican Party. Why? Because, as he told Rachel Gotbaum of the New England Journal of Medicine, he had seen first hand the tragedy of diseases for which stem cell research held the promise of future cures:

RG: You're a pro-life Republican.

Orrin Hatch: That's right.

RG: Did something happen? Did a case come up? What was the turning point?

OH: Well, there was a case. I can't say that it was the only reason why my mind was changed, but there was a little Utah boy - he was 4 years of age - who was brought to me. His name was Cody Anderson. He was 4 years of age, and you can imagine the horror his family had when they found out that he had exactly the same virulent diabetic condition that his grandfather had, who died at the premature age of 47 due to complications of diabetes after a series of something like 27 painful and debilitating and ultimately unsuccessful operations. I can still remember that little exhausted boy falling peacefully asleep in his father's arms in my office as his family visited me in support of more funding for diabetes research. It dawned on me that we owe the best we can to these kids.

Fred Thompson will no doubt face yet more admonishment from leaders of the religious right uncomfortable with the political implications of his personal tragedy. Expect their retribution to continue until they suffer similar personal tragedies of their own.

Much to chagrin of its radical right organizers, this weekend's Values Voter Summit of GOP White House hopefuls produced only confusion. Despite the gymnastic contortions and acrobatic back-flips of Republican presidential candidates eager to win evangelical hearts and minds, no clear winner of the conference straw poll emerged. Thanks to his stuffing of the online ballot box, Mitt Romney edged Mike Huckabee, the clear favorite of actual conference goers, by 1,595 votes to 1,565.

Eager to avoid a repeat of this year's inconclusive outcome, the organizer of the event, Tony Perkins' Family Research Council, is moving to a new competitive format designed to produce a definitive winner. Here, then, is the guide to the Values Voter Olympics for 2008:

Waterboarding Graeme Frost. For the radical right, as Al Franken once told me, "life begins at conception and ends at birth." This event gives aspiring conservatives a chance to prove it. Using waterboarding and other Bush administration approved enhanced interrogation techniques, the first candidate to get 12 year S-CHIP recipient Graeme Frost to admit his parents make too much money to qualify for publicly financed health insurance wins.

Terri Schiavo Misdiagnosis. In this sport pioneered by former Senate Majority Leader and physician Bill Frist, each candidate is shown a videotape of the brain-dead Terri Schiavo. Because expert medical testimony and subsequent autopsy results still leave Republicans room for "uncertainty," the gold medal goes to the first candidate to declare that Schiavo was not in a persistent vegetative state and instead could have been a sure favorite to win Dancing with the Stars.

Deportation Pentathlon. Values Voters know that out of control immigration is taking American jobs and destroying American culture. In this five-part challenge, the first Republican to deny medical treatment to an illegal alien, raid a factory in a blue state, deport the Guatemalan wife of a U.S. Iraq veteran, design an electrified border fence and throw a keg party for the Minutemen takes the gold.

100 Meter High Hurdles for Life. Here, the Values Voter hopefuls square off in a race combining speed and athleticism. The winner is the first to complete the 100 meter high hurdles sprint while carrying a jar with a fetus preserved in formaldehyde.

The Boy Scout Test. As any Values Voter will tell you, you can't be gay and be either a Boy Scout or Republican politician. Candidates will be asked to identify as many closeted Republicans in 60 seconds as they can. The White House hopeful adding the most names to the ranks of Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Jim West, Ed Shrock and Ted Haggard wins. (Results, of course, will not be shared with the media.)

The Defense of Marriage Marathon. Marriage should only be between one man and one woman, not another man, a dog or a box turtle. The prospective GOP Oval Office occupant who authors a constitutional amendment banning marriage between a man and the most mammal, fish, reptile, amphibian, bird and other species will wear the marathon crown.

The 666 Yard Dash. Co-sponsored by Christians United for Israel (CUFI) leader John Hagee, this event challenges the Republican candidates to find the shortest distance between Tehran and Armageddon. The first GOP stalwart promising to preemptively attack Iran wins the rapturous support of the Values Voters.

The Phony Soldier Horseshoe Toss. Values voters know that Iraq veterans opposing President Bush's excellent adventure in Baghdad are emboldening the enemy. Republican presidential candidates can show their commitment to stifling such dangerous dissent at home with the most accurate horseshoe toss at the "phony soldiers" of Vote Vets, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the Army authors of "The War as We Saw It" and the 12 captains of "The Real Iraq We Knew."

The Intelligent Design Challenge. Man did not descend by chance from apes, but instead was the work of an intelligent designer. Republicans seeking the presidency must debunk Darwin's perverse theory of evolution. Candidates must argue that men rode T-Rex bareback in a pre-historic Kentucky Derby 6,000 years ago. For style points, they must describe how the existence of George W. Bush proves that evolution is reversing.

By most accounts, Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey is not the intellectually stunted, duplicitous partisan hatchet man and unabashed Bush loyalist that was his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales. But in his testimony this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week, Mukasey followed almost the same script on Bush administration torture policy as Gonzales during his own confirmation hearings in January 2005. As it turns out, both men disavowed the infamous 2002 Bybee memo and brushed aside questions about ongoing torture of detainees as "hypothetical" even as the policies continued unchanged.

First, a little background. As I wrote two weeks ago, Alberto Gonzales lied to Congress regarding the administration's policy on torture of detainees during his 2005 confirmation hearings. Beginning in August 2002, the infamous Bybee memo drafted by torture apologist John Yoo was the basis for the Bush administration's interrogation techniques for terror detainees worldwide. Defining torture as "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death," the White House endorsed brutal techniques up to and including waterboarding. But while the Justice Department in December 2004 publicly proclaimed that torture was "abhorrent," the new Attorney General in February 2005 and again later that same year issued secret memos which "provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures."

But that uninterrupted policy of detainee torture is not what Alberto Gonzales described to Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) during his confirmation hearing in January 2005. The August 2002 memo, Gonzales claimed had been withdrawn, and questions about the extent of presidential war powers eclipsing laws and treaties of the United States were merely "hypothetical."

FEINGOLD: The question here is: What is your view regarding the president's constitutional authority to authorize violations of the criminal law, duly enacted statutes that may have been on the books for many years, when acting as commander in chief? Does he have such authority?

The question you have been asked is not about a hypothetical statute in the future that the president might think is unconstitutional; it's about our laws and international treaty obligations concerning torture.

The torture memo answered that question in the affirmative. And my colleagues and I would like your answer on that today...

GONZALES: Senator, the August 30th memo has been withdrawn. It has been rejected, including that section regarding the commander in chief authority to ignore the criminal statutes.

So it's been rejected by the executive branch. I categorically reject it.

And in addition to that, as I've said repeatedly today, this administration does not engage in torture and will not condone torture.

And so what we're really discussing is a hypothetical situation...

Fast forward 30 months to witness Judge Mukasey channeling Alberto Gonzales during his own confirmation hearings to head the Justice Department. Like Gonzales, Mukasey rejected the 2002 Bybee memo and its authorization for detainee torture.

"The Bybee memo, to paraphrase a French diplomat, was worse than a sin, it was a mistake. It was unnecessary."

And like Gonzales, Mukasey refused to disavow specific "enhanced interrogation techniques" such as waterboarding. Entering the realm of semantics and circular logic, Mukasey followed Gonzales' 2005 approach in characterizing discussions of presidential power to authorize given interrogation procedures as hypothetical. As the Washington Post detailed on Friday, Mukasey in essence the legality of "torture" all depends what the meaning of "torture" is:

"I'm hoping that you can at least look at this one technique and say that clearly constitutes torture, it should not be the policy of the United States to engage in waterboarding," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

"It is not constitutional for the United States to engage in torture in any form, be it waterboarding or anything else," Mukasey answered.

During terse questioning by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Mukasey said he did not know if waterboarding is torture because he is not familiar with how it is done.

"If it's torture?" Whitehouse responded incredulously. "That's a massive hedge. I mean, it either is or it isn't."

"If it amounts to torture, it is not constitutional," Mukasey answered.

"I'm very disappointed in that answer," Whitehouse said. "I think it is purely semantic."

All of which suggests that Senator Chuck Schumer's hopeful picture of Michael Mukasey as "the kind of nominee who would put rule of law first and show independence from the White House" is in fact mistaken. As it turns out, the iconic image for a Bush Attorney General is Alberto Gonzales after all.

For more background on the Bush administration's unbroken policy of detainee torture, see "Bush Signing Statement, Gonzales Perjury Concealed Torture Policy."

President Bush's disturbingly flip comment Wednesday about Iran and World War III not only revealed his apparent comfort when discussing global conflagration. Bush's gaffe also showed the common vision between himself, the man most likely to succeed him as head of the Republican Party and those who advise them both. For George Bush, Rudy Giuliani and the likes of Norman Podhoretz, the only dispute about "world war" is whether we're already fighting it and what number we're on.

For President Bush, ever ready in the past to seek false parallels between his Iraq adventure and the World War II, a nuclear armed Iran would be the next real deal:

"We got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel. So I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

Rudy Giuliani and his top foreign policy adviser Norman Podhoretz couldn't agree more. On Tuesday, Giuliani talked tough on Tehran, declaring, "If I'm president of the United States, I guarantee you we will never find out what they will do if they get nuclear weapons, because they're not going to get nuclear weapons."

But it is Podhoretz who helps provide the world war vision to both the current and would-be next GOP occupant of the White House. His latest pro-war screed from June, "The Case for Bombing Iran," is required reading in both the Bush and Giuliani camps. In his book World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism, Podhoretz argues that with the conflict against Al Qaeda, Iraq and Iran, Sunni and Shiite, and other Islamic foes real or imagined, the next world war is already underway. As he told Newsweek:

"I decided to join Giuliani's team because his view of the war - what I call World War IV - is very close to my own," Podhoretz tells NEWSWEEK. (World War III, in his view, was the cold war.) "And also because he has the qualities of a wartime leader, including a fighting spirit and a determination to win."

The difference between Bush and Giuliani on framing the war on terror and looming conflict with Iran is essentially a digit. Both appropriate the Second World War, fascist analogies and the sacrifices of the "Greatest Generation" to help sell this "good war." (Both men learned their lesson and quickly dropped their problematic Iraq-as-Vietnam analogies.) Their only apparent disagreement is whether or not to give the Cold War, in which their shared conservative legend tells us Ronald Reagan single-handedly triumphed over the Soviet Union, its own lofty World War title.

So is it World War III or World War IV? George W. Bush and Rudy Giuliani would no doubt quote Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet:

What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Last night's airing of the PBS Frontline documentary "Cheney's Law" could not have come at a more fitting time. As Congress begins debate on a new FISA bill and the issue of immunity for telecommunications firms, Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey begins confirmation hearings in the Senate. But as Frontline reminded us last night, the architects of the Bush administration's NSA domestic surveillance program believe FISA itself is unconstitutional.

First, a little background. Cheney's Law describes the Vice President's decades-long effort to expand the scope of presidential authority centering on a virtually limitless notion of wartime powers as commander-in-chief. Aided by his current chief of staff David Addington, former Office of Legal Counsel stalwart John Yoo and current OLC nominee Steven Bradbury, Cheney drove the Bush administration's unprecedented claims of presidential authority to detain American citizens, authorize torture and intercept the communications of American citizens.

But as the debate over FISA heats up with the specter of President Bush's looming veto on the issue of telecom immunity, it's clear that the administration braintrust considers the FISA itself an unconstitutional intrusion on the President's powers and commander-in-chief. As John Yoo told Frontline:

"I think that there's a law greater than FISA, which is the Constitution, and part of the Constitution is the president's commander-in-chief power. Congress can't take away the president's powers in running war. They are given to him by the Constitution, in the same way that Congress couldn't pass laws saying you can't invade Normandy or you can't place Europe first in World War II. There are some decisions the Constitution gives the president, and even if Congress passes a law, they can't seize that from him."

That claim, however, is one the President and his Republican allies in Congress have been understandably reticent to make publicly. As I wrote in February 2006, their trepidation is well founded; as a matter of law and of politics, an attack by Republicans on the constitutionality of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was bound to fail. (For more details, see "The Republicans' Constitutional Crisis.")

Instead, the true believers of the Bush administration couched the love for presidential power that dare not speak its name in others terms. Until President Bush signed the so-called Protect America Act, his regime of warrantless NSA domestic surveillance rested upon a very shaky three-legged legal edifice. The first claimed by Bush apologists was that Congress' 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) gave the President a blank check to intercept the international communications of U.S. residents without warrants. The second, more sweeping assertion was that the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program fell within the President's Article II power as commander-in-chief. Together, the President's amen corner at the DOJ asserted, these powers granted by Congress and the Constitution allowed the Bush administration to bypass the clear intent of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (or virtually any other act of Congress). As Yoo wrote in an infamous September 25, 2001 memo:

We think it beyond question that the President has the plenary constitutional power to take such military actions as he deems necessary and appropriate to respond to the terrorist attacks upon the United States on September 11, 2001. Force can be used both to retaliate for those attacks, and to prevent and deter future assaults on the Nation. Military actions need not be limited to those individuals, groups, or states that participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon: the Constitution vests the President with the power to strike terrorist groups or organizations that cannot be demonstrably linked to the September 11 incidents, but that, nonetheless, pose a similar threat to the security of the United States and the lives of its people, whether at home or overseas. In both the War Powers Resolution and the Joint Resolution, Congress has recognized the President's authority to use force in circumstances such as those created by the September 11 incidents. Neither statute, however, can place any limits on the President's determinations as to any terrorist threat, the amount of military force to be used in response, or the method, timing, and nature of the response. These decisions, under our Constitution, are for the President alone to make.

Which is why the Democrats' capitulation on the August FISA bill in the face of such an extreme power grab was so devastating. They not only had the votes to safeguard American civil liberties and prevent the legalization of past Bush White House criminality. On FISA as we knew it before August 5, 2007, Democrats had the law - and public opinion - on their side.

That sad chapter may history, but Democrats can still draw a line in the sand and force the President's hand on FISA and NSA domestic surveillance. In the wake of revelations that the NSA commenced its program prior to 9/11, that the administration may have retaliated against Qwest for its refusal to provide customer data to the agency and that Verizon turned over subscriber calling information without warrants, Democrats should call the President's bluff on retroactive immunity for the telecom companies. False claims by DNI Michael McConnell and the President's amen corner that FISA changes were central to breaking up the German terror plot or to needed to prevent kidnappings of U.S. troops in Iraq should be debunked. Further, Senate Democrats led by Dick Durbin, Russ Feingold and Ted Kennedy should continue to block the nomination of NSA homeland spying architect and torture advocate Steve Bradbury to head the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel.

As Frontline made clear last night, Cheney's should not be the law of the land.

When former White House press secretary Tony Snow announced his resignation in August, he claimed his departure was motivated by his need for "dough." Appearing on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart Monday night, it turns out Snow is content to shill for President Bush for free.

Rejecting the assertion that Bush was far from the self-proclaimed "uniter" of GOP lore, Snow pooh-poohed Stewart's example that a petulant, mean-spirited President intentionally taunted his Democratic opponents by calling theirs the "Democrat Party." As it turns out, of course, what Snow implied was a slip of the presidential tongue is in fact a deliberate Bush tactic. (A quick Google search of the White House web site shows 39 examples of the "Democrat Party" slur, over 20 of them from Bush himself.)

In the wake of the "thumping" the Republicans received in the 2006 midterm elections, President Bush feebly tried to feign a spirit of cooperation with the victorious Democratic leadership. While Bush couldn't help himself the day after the GOP disaster ("it is clear the Democrat Party had a good night last night"), the President at the House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference in February 2007 tried to laugh off his gambit with a nod to his legendary rhetorical incontinence:

"The last time I looked at some of your faces, I was at the State of the Union, and I saw kind of a strange expression when I referred to something as the Democrat Party. Now, look, my diction isn't all that good. (Laughter.) I have been accused of occasionally mangling the English language. (Laughter.) And so I appreciate you inviting the head of the Republic Party. (Laughter and applause.)"

But as a quick walk down memory lane will show, George W. Bush used the term "Democrat Party" early and often, a practice he continues even today. As the chronology reflects, the closer Bush is to election time, the more frequently his pre-pubescent "Democrat Party" name-calling becomes a Bush staple:

"And I was disappointed that not more leaders in the Democrat Party spoke out strongly against that kind of ad [by MoveOn.org]." (September 20, 2007)

"There are people in my party that don't want a comprehensive bill; there are people in the Democrat Party that don't seem to want a comprehensive bill." (June 11, 2007)

"On these issues, the Democrat Party has adopted a clear strategy of opposition and obstruction." (November 5, 2006, 3 mentions)

"Time and time again, when she and the Democrat party had a chance to show their love -- (laughter) -- they voted, no. (Laughter.) If that's their idea of love I sure would hate -- I'd hate to see what hate looks like. (Laughter.)" (November 2, 2006)

"Time and time again, when she and the Democrat Party had an opportunity to show their love for tax cuts, they voted no." (October 30, 2006)

"There are people in the Democrat Party who think they can spend your money far better than you can." (October 30, 2006, 6 mentions)

"It's interesting, if you look at the history of tax cuts, the Democrat Party always -- didn't always feel the way they feel today." (October 19, 2006, 4 mentions)

"And those are some of the voices, by the way, in the Democrat Party." (October 11, 2006)

"Make no mistake about it. The Democrat Party is anxious to get their hands on your money." (October 3, 2006)

"And there are a lot of people in the Democrat Party who believe that the best course of action is to leave Iraq before the job is done, period." (August 21, 2006)

"There's an interesting debate in the Democrat Party about how quick to pull out of Iraq." (June 14, 2006)

"I did notice that nobody from the Democrat Party has actually stood up and called for getting rid of the terrorist surveillance program." (March 21, 2006)

"And one area that we need to make progress on is with the Democrat Party." (November 7, 2005, 3 mentions)

"First of all, the Republican Party should never take a vote for granted, and neither should the Democrat Party." (October 5, 2005)

"I think it's time for the leadership in the Democrat Party to start laying out ideas." (June 23, 2005)

"It's the issue confronting people in the Democrat Party, issue people confronting in the Republican Party." (May 19, 2005)

"You know the Democrat Party left you, you didn't leave it." (October 31, 2004)

"As the Mayor puts it, he didn't leave the Democrat Party, the Democrat Party under John Kerry left him." (October 28, 2004)

"With that record, he stands in opposition not just to me, but to the great tradition of the Democrat Party." (October 27, 2004)

"Does the Democrat Party take African American voters for granted?" (July 23, 2004)

"As you know, I'm a proud member of the Republican Party. I'm traveling today with proud members of the Democrat Party. But we're all proud Americans, first and foremost." (January 31, 2002)

President Bush, of course, is far from alone in deploying the Reaganesque "Democrat Party" taunt for Republican fun and frolic. His first press secretary Ari Fleischer went to that well almost as soon he reached the podium in 2001. Scott McClellan followed suit. On his way out, Karl Rove offered the press corps one more "Democrat Party" razzing for the road. And just two weeks ago, Georgia Congressman Jack Kingston taunted his Democratic colleagues on the House floor, most recently in defense of Rush Limbaugh's "phony soldiers" slander.

While all wish Tony Snow a full and fast recovery from his bout with cancer, it remains clear he has not been cured of his chronic smugness and apparently untreatable dissembling. As for his ex-boss, President Bush too appears beyond redemption.

UPDATE: The Daily Show web site has now posted both Part 1 and Part 2 of Jon Stewart's interview with Tony Snow.

In a double-edged sword for the Bush administration, Monday's Washington Post reports that the Pentagon believes it has dealt "devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months." But with the good news surrounding Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), responsible for only a small fraction of the attacks against U.S. forces and Iraqi civilians, comes the Catch-22 for President Bush: the very dissipation of the Al Qaeda threat in Iraq removes his primary rationale for extending the American presence there.

As Karen de Young and Thomas Ricks (author of Fiasco, perhaps the defining military analysis of the invasion of Iraq) detail, the drop-off in Al Qaeda attacks (down from 60 in January to 30 in July) and the improving alliances with Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province are leading some American military leaders to advocate a "declaration of victory":

Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, head of the Joint Special Operations Command's operations in Iraq, is the chief promoter of a victory declaration and believes that AQI has been all but eliminated, the military in