How Low Can He Go?

"Walton also asked the CIA to tell him whether the agency can compile what he wants and, if so, how long it would take to put the information together for Libby's lawyers. The judge wants an answer by Thursday."

Blogger Jeralyn Merritt analyzes Walton's rulings and Web publishes one of them.

Speaking of Merritt, more than three weeks ago, deep inside a long blog posting , Merritt noted a curious passage in a then-new court filing by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

Today, James Gordon Meek turns it into a big story in the New York Daily News: "Handwritten notes taken by the CIA show Vice President Cheney's top aide knew the name of CIA spy Valerie Plame a month before her cover was blown.

"It appears to be the first known document in the hands of prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that directly contradicts Lewis (Scooter) Libby's claim he learned from reporters in July 2003 that Valerie Plame was a CIA employee. . . .

" 'A CIA employee assigned to provide daily intelligence briefs to the Vice President and Libby has handwritten notes indicating that Libby referred to 'Joe Wilson' and 'Valerie Wilson' by those names in conversation with the briefer on June 14, 2003,' Fitzgerald wrote in a recently unsealed brief.

"The filing suggests Cheney may have been present when Libby griped to his CIA briefer about agency officials slamming the veep in the press."

It's worth noting that bloggers have in several cases now been much more meticulous readers of the filings in the Libby case than mainstream news reporters. But -- especially if they themselves don't trumpet the importance of what they've spotted -- what they write may get lost in the noise.

Another example: I wrote on Feb. 10 about the scoop Murray Waas got in the National Journal -- based on his close reading of a document that had been public for more than a week. Afterwards, I learned that bloggers posting at The Next Hurrah and Firedoglake had actually spotted the same detail much earlier.

John Dickerson takes a look at scooterlibby.com for Slate, and concludes: "Libby's site has a hard time, because it simultaneously is trying to argue that a) he was likely to forget the Plame episodes and b) he was hypercompetent."

Port Watch

Carl Hulse and David E. Sanger write in the New York Times: "Coast Guard intelligence officials in December raised the possibility of significant security risks associated with the management of some United States port operations by a Dubai company, saying in a previously undisclosed document that broad 'intelligence gaps' prevented them from even assessing the risks."

Jonathan Weisman writes in The Washington Post: "The issue is sure to stoke political concerns that a deal brokered last weekend between the company, the Bush administration and congressional GOP leaders does not go far enough. That deal provided that the company could go forward with its $6.85 billion acquisition of P&O, but it would not assert control over U.S. properties while the administration conducts a 45-day review of the deal's national security implications. Senators from both political parties moved yesterday to immediately stop the deal, pending the review's outcome."

Special Counsel (Non) Watch

Katherine Shrader writes for the Associated Press: "The White House on Monday rejected the call by more than a dozen House Democrats for a special counsel to investigate the Bush administration's eavesdropping program.

"President Bush's spokesman Scott McClellan said those Democrats should instead spend their time investigating the source of the unauthorized disclosure of the classified program, which 'has given the enemy some of our playbook.' "

Unhappy Governors

Robert Tanner writes for the Associated Press: "Republican governors are openly worrying that the Bush administration's latest stumbles -- from the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina to those of its own making on prescription drugs and ports security -- are taking an election-year toll on the party back home."

Dan Balz writes in The Washington Post: "President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sought yesterday to allay concerns among the nation's governors about funding and restructuring of the National Guard, but governors in both parties later said the administration must do more to satisfy them fully."

Robert Pear writes in the New York Times: "The status of the National Guard, in its dual federal-state role, has emerged as the most volatile issue at the winter meeting of the National Governors Association."

Rhetoric Watch

Caroline Daniel writes in the Financial Times: "President George W. Bush yesterday stepped up his rhetoric about US dependence on oil from the Middle East, warning about the dangers of being dependent on countries where 'tyrants control the spigots'."

Here's the text of his speech to the National Governors Association.

Brownie Speaks

Here's the transcript from NBC News anchor Brian Williams's interview with former FEMA head Mike Brown.

"Michael Brown: On Tuesday, August 30th, sometime in the morning, there was a secure conference call, and the president takes control of that call and pretty much shuts everybody up and says, 'I need to hear from Brown right now what's going on.' And I remember my first words to him were, 'Mr. President, my estimate is that 90 percent -- 90 percent -- of the population of New Orleans has now been displaced.' And there was just that split second of silence. And [then], '90 percent?' 'Yes sir, I believe it is that bad. That's how bad it is.' I really thought that would get just the whole mechanism of the federal government to come charging in."

As Dave Goldiner writes in the New York Daily News: "Brown's latest assertion casts more doubt on White House claims that it was unaware of the full extent of the damage until much later that week. Bush spent the two days after the hurricane struck the Gulf Coast on a political trip in the Southwest before returning to Washington."

Pillar's Questions

Paul R. Pillar , the former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until last year, recently wrote in Foreign Affairs that the Bush Administration cherry-picked intelligence to make its case for war.

Now he writes for NiemanWatchdog.org that the press was insufficiently questioning both in the run-up to war and in its coverage of the 9/11 Commission.

Among the questions he says the press has still not gotten an answer to: "When was the decision to go to war in Iraq made, what beliefs and analysis led to that decision (as distinct from arguments used to muster support for the decision), and where did those beliefs and analysis come from?"

The Cheney Rumors

Wonkette crudely but accurately assesses the questionable reliability of a report in Insight Magazine , which yesterday unleashed this unbylined story: "Senior GOP sources envision the retirement of Mr. Cheney in 2007, months after the congressional elections. The sources said Mr. Cheney would be persuaded to step down as he becomes an increasing political liability to President Bush."

Insight Magazine, like the Washington Times, is owned by the Unification Church. I spoke to editor Jeffrey Kuhner yesterday who explained that Insight is "a sister publication of the Washington Times but we have no editorial connection to them whatsoever."

Do you share editorial standards, I asked? "We're a bit of a different kind of publication, because we're an Internet publication," he said.