Where's Karl Rove?

"All right, then, dump everything out of the wheelbarrow except one rather weighty question: Did George W. Bush and his Cabinet lead the nation into war on false pretenses? Specifically, did Bush and the others know full well -- or, at a bare minimum, should they have known -- that the rhetoric they used to convince Americans of imminent peril from Saddam Hussein's purported weapons of mass destruction was based on sketchy, disputed and even fraudulent evidence?"

Robinson concludes that either they misread the intelligence -- "a grievous error" -- or they intentionally hyped it -- "a crime."

Michael Kinsley writes in Time with the most overly cynical, world-weary and contrarian argument I have heard yet for Libby to be pardoned: That compared to his colleagues at the White House, Libby's only crime was that he got caught:

"[Pile up] all the lies told by this Administration in advancing its war in Iraq. Rank them in importance. Where would you put Scooter Libby's unconvincing faulty memory about who told what to whom about Valerie Plame Wilson? Not very high, I think. If President Bush has a shred of humanity in him -- if he has suffered even a tiny moment of doubt about this huge and tragic mess he has gotten our country into -- how can he let the clock tick him out of office without pardoning a very small player in this tragedy, but the one who happened to get caught?"

Editorial Watch

What do folks think about this outside the Beltway? A non-scientific survey of smaller-paper editorials:

Toledo Blade: "Scooter Libby should go to prison for his part in the White House's shameful campaign of retaliation against an administration war critic. And no, he doesn't deserve a pardon.

"But a pardon won't wipe away the indelible stain of impropriety from an administration that has tried to steamroller its critics by concocting lies and fabrications."

Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle: "Fall guy or not, Libby made his choices, and the verdict was true to the evidence.

"A pardon would be political interference of a kind that got Libby and his bosses in trouble in the first place."

Pensacola (Fla.) News-Journal: "It is crucial that staffers such as Libby know that if they break the law to protect their bosses -- even for political reasons -- they risk jail."

Times-Herald of Vallejo Calif.: "It's essential that the president let justice run its course and allow Libby to pay for his crimes.

"In the meantime, it's time that the 'cloud' hanging over Washington that Fitzgerald spoke of be lifted. The president and the vice president can start the process with some straight answers to some left-over questions.

"Did the president lie about the role of the White House in this saga? Or was he merely kept in the dark by high-ranking officials who went against his order to come clean?

"Either way, it's time for some straight answers from someone other than Mr. Libby."

Lessons Learned

Paula Zahn spoke with Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund about the effects of the Libby case on Cheney;

Fund: "Look, Dick Cheney's role in the Bush White House was diminished a little bit starting two years ago. This is not a new story.

"Any time you have a president that is in the low 30s in approval rating, you're going to get the search for scapegoats and you're going to get people settling scores within the administration.

"The bigger story here is not what's happened to Dick Cheney. The bigger story is the civil war that's broken out in the administration. This is an administration that used to be very united, never leaked. And now you have everybody sniping at everybody else.

"Dick Cheney has been caught in the crossfire. This -- the Scooter Libby story doesn't change materially Dick Cheney's standing. He's still first among equals among the president's advisers. What has happened is, it's exposed the incredible desire to settle scores and to assign blame within the entire administration."

Matt Stearns writes for McClatchy Newspapers: "The Libby case . . . illustrates that too many elite members of the media are more interested in cultivating Washington power brokers than in maintaining skeptical, independent and arms-length relationships with them, challenging their assertions and holding them to account for their failings.

"The consequences can be enormous: The country went to war in Iraq on false or exaggerated evidence trumpeted by anonymous sources through compliant media. . . .

"During the Libby trial, reporters for The New York Times, NBC News and other major news outlets testified about their willingness to grant Libby anonymity in exchange for listening as he spun stories intended to undermine the credibility of a Bush administration critic. To many Americans, it seemed to confirm that in Washington, big media names are sometimes partners in power with the officials they're supposed to be holding accountable."

Stearns concludes: "Perhaps if more of the nation's elite journalists were less devoted to cultivating the powerful and more interested in exposing their failings, the public would be better served."

Flashback

Elizabeth Loftus and Richard L. Steinberg write in a Wall Street Journal op-ed (subscription required) that "absence of expert-witness testimony may have contributed to an unjust verdict."

Loftus . . . Loftus . . . Sound familiar? Oh yes, she was the victim of what The Washington Post's Carol D. Leonnig called a Ginsu-like legal performance by Fitzgerald in a pretrial hearing last October.

"Fitzgerald's target in the witness box was Elizabeth F. Loftus, a professor of criminology and psychology at the University of California at Irvine. For more than an hour of the pretrial hearing, Loftus calmly explained to Judge Reggie B. Walton her three decades of expertise in human memory and witness testimony. Loftus asserted that, after copious scientific research, she has found that many potential jurors do not understand the limits of memory and that Libby should be allowed to call an expert to make that clear to them.

"But when Fitzgerald got his chance to cross-examine Loftus about her findings, he had her stuttering to explain her own writings and backpedaling from her earlier assertions. Citing several of her publications, footnotes and the work of her peers, Fitzgerald got Loftus to acknowledge that the methodology she had used at times in her long academic career was not that scientific, that her conclusions about memory were conflicting, and that she had exaggerated a figure and a statement from her survey of D.C. jurors that favored the defense. . . .

"There were several moments when Loftus was completely caught off guard by Fitzgerald, creating some very awkward silences in the courtroom.

"One of those moments came when Loftus insisted that she had never met Fitzgerald. He then reminded her that he had cross-examined her before, when she was an expert defense witness and he was a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office in New York."

The Gonzales Eight

Paul Kane and Dan Eggen write in The Washington Post: "Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales agreed yesterday to change the way U.S. attorneys can be replaced, a reversal in administration policy that came after he was browbeaten by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee still angry over the controversial firings of eight federal prosecutors. . . .

"Gonzales also agreed to allow the committee to interview five top-level Justice Department officials as part of an ongoing Democratic-led probe into the firings, senators said after a tense, hour-long meeting in [Sen. Patrick J.] Leahy's office suite.

"The concessions represent a turnaround by the White House and the Justice Department, which have argued for three months that Gonzales must have unfettered power to appoint interim federal prosecutors and have resisted disclosing details about the firings."

Eggen and Kane wrote in Thursday's Post that one of the officials the Democrats intend to question is Monica Goodling, Justice's White House liaison, "to determine the White House role in the firings. Administration officials have said the White House approved them, but did not initiate them."

Just how closely was the White House was involved in these firings remains a mystery. Administration officials have acknowledged that one of the eight, Bud Cummins of Arkansas, was fired to make room for a former Rove aide.

Rove also may figure in at least one of the other firings. As Janet Hook, Richard A. Serrano and Mark Z. Barabak wrote in the Los Angeles Times on Thursday: "It was just three weeks before election day 2006, and Rep. Heather A. Wilson was on the ropes. . . .

"One person in a good position to help Wilson was U.S. Atty. David C. Iglesias, who was investigating Democratic corruption in her home state. A late-breaking indictment of Democratic officials could help Wilson distance herself from sex and lobbying scandals plaguing the GOP in Washington.

"That's why eyebrows raised when it was recently disclosed that, in the heat of her fight for political survival, Wilson called Iglesias to ask about possible indictments. So did [her mentor, Sen. Pete V.] Domenici. . . .

"Democrats see the New Mexico episode as indicative of the lengths Republicans were willing to go to gain political advantage in the crucial midterm elections that ended up changing the balance of power in Congress.

"Wilson's Democratic opponent in November, Patricia Madrid, accused Wilson and Domenici of crossing an ethical line with hardball tactics encouraged by Karl Rove, President Bush's political advisor. Rove attended a fundraiser for Wilson during the campaign and kept close tabs on the race."

The Arkansas Times has a video clip from Rove's aforementioned appearance Thursday in Little Rock, where he was asked about the firings. He was in full spin mode.

Paul Kiel of TPMMuckraker.com transcribed Rove's comments: "What happened in this instance, was there were seven done all at once, and people wanted to play politics with it. . . . And my view this is . . . unfortunately a very big attempt by some in the Congress to make a political stink about it."

Headed for Confrontation

Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray write in The Washington Post: "Bush administration officials escalated the fight over a new spending package for the Iraq war yesterday, saying for the first time that the president will veto a House Democratic plan because it includes a timetable to start bringing troops home within a year and would undermine military efforts. . . .

"Under the House plan, Congress would institute the same tough benchmarks for the Iraqi government that Bush detailed in a national address in January. The president would have to certify by July 1 that the Iraqi government had made progress toward those goals. If he could not, troops would begin withdrawing, with all troops out of combat by year's end. If Bush could certify progress, he would have until Oct. 1 to certify that all of the benchmarks had been met. If they had not, troops would have to be withdrawn by March."

Here's the transcript of a news briefing yesterday by Snow, counselor Dan Bartlett and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley.

Said Bartlett: "I would just say that's why today's announcement is so disappointing, because it has all the hallmarks of a political compromise and none of the coherence of a military and political strategy that would help you win and accomplish your goals in a very important theater of this war. And that's why we feel so strongly that at this time and this juncture in the mission in Iraq, that we don't need to be handcuffing the generals on the ground."

Bush's Trip

Peter Baker writes in The Washington Post from Sao Paulo, Brazil: "Thousands of students, workers and environmentalists protesting President Bush's arrival here Thursday shut down a road in a central business district, and some clashed with helmet-wearing riot police who fired tear gas and beat demonstrators.

"The boisterous rally and the sharp police response presaged a potentially volatile visit for the president, who landed here in the evening for a six-day tour through Latin America, his longest since taking office. Protesters also gathered Thursday in Colombia and Mexico, two later stops on Bush's itinerary, and organizers expect tens of thousands at a demonstration in Buenos Aires on Friday."

Baker is blogging all sorts of interesting observations and tidbits from the trip for washingtonpost.com.

A Central, and Misleading Claim

Monte Reel and Peter Baker write in The Washington Post that a central claim of Bush's trip is that "U.S. concerns about persistent poverty have prompted a doubling of economic aid to Latin America since 2001. . . .

"To make the claim, however, Bush is relying on what some analysts called an accounting gimmick. In fact, they said, U.S. aid to Latin America has remained relatively stable since 2000. And the budget Bush sent to Congress last month proposed cutting aid from $1.6 billion to $1.47 billion, an 8 percent reduction. . . .

"Bush is so intent on calling attention to U.S. aid, telling interviewers and audiences that he has increased it from $860 million to $1.6 billion. 'And yet we don't get much credit for it,' Bush told CNN's Spanish-language network. 'And I want the taxpayers, I want the American people to get credit for their generosity in Central and South America.'

"Analysts note that Bush is using a misleading base line, comparing this year's figure with 2001, a year when Latin American aid was essentially cut in half temporarily to make up for a large military aid package for Colombia and five neighbors. Moreover, Bush never mentions in his comments that he just proposed cutting the figure he cites in next year's budget."

Evil Spirit?

Juan Carlos Llorca writes for the Associated Press from Guatemala City: "Mayan priests will purify a sacred archaeological site to eliminate 'bad spirits' after President Bush visits next week, an official with close ties to the group said Thursday.

"'That a person like [Bush], with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture,' Juan Tiney, the director of a Mayan nongovernmental organization with close ties to Mayan religious and political leaders, said Thursday."