McNulty: How to Make a Mountain

Out of Molehill, in 10 Days…

From ABC’s exclusive report on the role of Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty.  Read, and listen as you say to yourself, over and over, “oh no he didn’t…”

The official, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, ignored White House Counsel Harriet Miers and senior lawyers in the Justice Department when he told the committee last month of specific reasons why the administration fired seven U.S. attorneys — and appeared to acknowledge for the first time that politics was behind one dismissal. McNulty’s testimony directly conflicted with the approach Miers advised, according to an unreleased internal White House e-mail described to ABC News. According to that e-mail, sources said, Miers said the administration should take the firm position that it would not comment on personnel issues.

How hard is it to “We do not comment on personnel issues”?  A trained monkey could make the hand signs.

But McNulty, who worked on Capitol Hill 12 years, believed he had little choice but to more fully discuss the circumstances of the attorneys’ firings, according to a a senior Justice Department official familiar the circumstances. McNulty believed the senators would demand additional information, and he was confident he could draw on a long relationship with New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, in explaining in more detail, sources told ABC News.

It keeps getting worse.

(Via ABC)

The Groundhog Doesn’t Want to See His Shadow

This the end of the culture of corruption. Apparently Democrats weren’t upset that Republicans were corrupt, they were just insulted at how poorly they covered up their crimes. (Emphasis Mine)

Democrats promised reform and instituted “a moratorium” on all earmarks until the system was cleaned up. Now the appropriations committees are privately accepting pork-barrel requests again. But curiously, the scorekeeper on earmarks, the Library of Congress’s Congressional Research Service (CRS)–a publicly funded, nonpartisan federal agency–has suddenly announced it will no longer respond to requests from members of Congress on the size, number or background of earmarks. “They claim it’ll be transparent, but they’re taking away the very data that lets us know what’s really happening,” says Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn. “I’m convinced the appropriations committees are flexing their muscles with CRS.”

…

But other CRS staffers are happy to talk privately about the political pressure members often exert, despite Mr. Mulhollan’s new directive that all employees inform management within 24 hours of any contacts with the media. “The director operates out of fear members will get upset,” says Dennis Roth, a CRS labor economist who is president of a union representing 250 CRS workers. “The groundhog doesn’t want to see his shadow, so he stays in the dark hole so he won’t.”

“There is real anxiety members will complain if CRS says something is an earmark when the new appropriations committees say it isn’t,” says another CRS staffer. He notes CRS “caught hell” last year with its report finding that more than 95% of all earmarks in fiscal year 2006 bills weren’t written into law and thus not legally binding.

The concern now is that free-spending appropriations committees will use the new CRS gag rule to define earmarks downward.

They did say they were going to ‘clean up’ the system. Excuse me. I’m going to go watch The Godfather.

(Via WSJ, HT Club For Growth)

Tony Snow

Tony has showed a lot of gumption as press secretary, and brings that whole rare decent guy look to a place that could use many more decent guys.

A growth that was surgically removed from White House press secretary Tony Snow was cancerous and the cancer has spread to his liver, the White House disclosed on Tuesday.

… She said the cancer had spread to his liver and that Snow was in consultation with his doctors about starting chemotherapy.

… Snow, 51, had his colon removed in 2005 and underwent six months of chemotherapy. He recently passed the two-year mark since that took place and was pleased with his prospects.

Get well Tony.  We’re rooting for you.

(Via Reuters)

Edwards Defends Couric’s Probing Interview

Youtube clips of the interview

ABC Wrote:

During the interview, Couric probed the Edwards’ decision to continue campaigning for president, despite the news this week that Mrs. Elizabeth Edwards has been diagnosed with incurable bone cancer.

Criticism of Couric’s interview surfaced in the blogosphere, some suggesting the interview was ‘insensitive’ and ‘callous’.

However the Edwards campaign said Mrs. Edwards felt the interview was fair.

Why did Edwards defend her?  It is better than looking defensive over somthing that a lot of people probably were thinking, plus, Edwards base of support consists of Couric (or former-Couric, as the case may be) viewers.  They’d probably rally to Edwards’ side anyway, given the cirucumstances (because even if you’re thinking the cynical, you’re not supposed to say it), but best not to risk it.

(Via ABC’s Political Radar)

Conservative Democrats are Pro-gun afterall

You had to wonder if their rhetoric about guns was as empty as their rhetoric about spending and taxes.

Not so.

An aide to Sen. Jim Webb was arrested Monday when he entered a Senate office building with a loaded pistol, Capitol Police said.

Spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider said the aide was charged with carrying a pistol without a license and possessing an unregistered firearm and unregistered ammunition.

(Via Forbes)

Who Will Coburn Favor in ‘08?

So far, no word. However the Race 4 2008 has the Politico speculating about him possibly favoring McCain soon, and has him showing at a McCain fundraiser in Washington last week.

Showing at McCain’s swank shindig Wednesday at the Mandarin Oriental was Sen. Tom Coburn. Like McCain an outspoken critic of pork-barrel spending, the Okie from Muskogee also has considerable street cred with social conservatives. If he were to support his fellow maverick, Coburn, an obstetrician and vocal anti-abortion advocate, would probably become McCain’s top surrogate and validator with the pro-life community.

A Coburn aide told me that the senator is officially undecided but has great respect for Sen. McCain.

Keep an eye on this one.

Given McCain’s shakiness on taxes, his championing of CFR, and closeness to oh so many Democrats, I hope this stops at ‘great respect’. A man is not who is the last time you saw him, he’s who he has been from the beginning.  McCain may be saying the right stuff right now, but it’s awfully close to election season for a genuine conversion.  To boot, it’s a little early in the process to endorse a frontrunner.

(Via the Politico, HT Race 4 2008)

Video Clip from 20/20

Coburn’s War on Pork

“I’m not a very good politician, ’cause I’m obviously irritating a whole lot of people.” — Tom Coburn

If you missed Stossel’s report Friday, be sure and watch the whole clip.

( Thanks to Club for Growth)

Why America Will Never Go Metric

Because it will always be easier to lose a pound than a kilogram.

Coburn’s Healthcare Blueprint

The Wall Street journal is reporting on Tom Coburn’s efforts for a health care solution that doesn’t put us all in danger of Nanny State SIDS.

That debate is about the future of health-care reform, and it got some momentum this week when Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn released a big-ideas blueprint for restructuring the entire health-care system–the tax code, Medicare, tort liability, insurance laws–along free-market lines. Dr. Coburn’s plan builds on the White House’s own bold proposal in January to revamp tax laws so as to put consumers back in control of their health-care decisions. Both plans are about fundamental, bottom-up health-care reforms, cast in the language of markets, consumers and individual control.

Coburn’s Senate page has this to say about the plan:

U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK), a practicing physician and member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), today introduced the “Universal Health Care Choice and Access Act,” a comprehensive health care reform plan. U.S. Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), who also is a member of the HELP committee, joined Dr. Coburn as an original co-sponsor.

…

“Government-run, ‘Big Brother’ health care plans that some politicians are vowing to revive would drive-up tax rates, strangle our economy and deprive the most vulnerable individuals in society of basic health coverage. The seductive rhetoric behind ‘Big Brother’ health care hides the fact that socialized systems stay afloat by rationing care and letting people die before their time. In the United Kingdom, for example, cancer patients sometimes have to wait a year between their diagnosis and first chemotherapy treatment. That approach to health care is unconscionable,” Dr. Coburn said.

Provisions include encouraging prevention, shifting tax breaks towards individuals, creating a national market for health insurance so that consumers aren’t limited to local choices, clarifying the nature of health care costs, reforms portions of Medicare and provides states incentive to make Medicare less restrictive.

That last portion is extremely important. One massive HillaryCare program for the entire nation threatens all sorts of economic disruption. But the whole point of a multi-state nation with a limited national government was to allow for 50 labs where these ideas could be worked out and compete with each other. If HillaryCare is going to work so well, let’s let Minnesota, Iowa, and New Mexico prove it first. Once the national bureaucracy is created, any efforts to reform it will be a 50+ year effort of untold energy and political capital, and we’ve already got other problems that need our collective attention.

Keep up the good work Senator.

(kudos to Commonwealth Foundation’s Policy Blog for the find)

$24 billion worth of pork

In 2006, a lot of Freshman Democrats got elected on the promise that they were actually conservatives. Today they are expected to vote on an Iraq war supplemental that is filled with billions in pork projects. The Club for Growth is doing it’s job by targeting freshman who promised fiscal responsibility on the campaign trail.

The Club for Growth PAC denounced the Democratic House leadership for stuffing the Iraq war supplemental bill with $24 billion in outrageous pork projects and called upon the following Democratic freshmen to live up to their campaign pledges to restore fiscal responsibility to Congress and cut pork.

Nancy Boyda from Kansas, Heath Schuler from North Carolina, Nick Lampson from Texas, Tim Mahoney from Florida, and Harry Mitchell from Arizona are all being singled out by the Club for Growth. Follow the link below for details.

Via Press Release from The Club For Growth blog)