Bush's Exhibit A for Torture

"It's painfully clear what the President's request for retroactive immunity is really about. It's a self-serving attempt to avoid legal and political accountability and keep the American public in the dark about this whole shameful episode. Like the CIA's destruction of videotapes showing potentially criminal conduct, it's a desperate attempt to erase the past."

And from Sen. Russell Feingold: "Let me say now to my colleagues: Do not believe everything you hear. Last week I sat with many of you in the secure room in the Capitol, S-407, and listened to arguments made by the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General. And I can tell you with absolute certainty that several of the examples they gave were simply wrong. I am happy to have a classified meeting with anyone in this body who wishes to discuss this. . . .

"Based on what I have learned, I have very serious questions about the way that the Administration is interpreting and implementing the Protect America Act, including its effect on the privacy of Americans."

Plame Watch

In a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman today reiterated his request for documents from special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak of CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson's identity. (See my Dec. 3 column, Bush Blocking Fitzgerald Cooperation.)

Writes Waxman: "Since I wrote you on December 3, Lewis I. 'Scooter' Libby has dropped the appeal of his criminal conviction arising from the Fitzgerald investigation. With that action, there remains no further pending litigation associated with the Fitzgerald investigation.

"I do not regard the existence of an on-going investigation or pending litigation as a sufficient reason to withhold information from Congress. Now that Mr. Fitzgerald's investigation and Mr. Libby's appeal have both ended, however, there should be no basis for further delay in responding to the Committee's request."

Bush at the Yak-a-Doo

Bush helicoptered to exurban Stafford County, Va. yesterday to talk about the economy.

Kristen Mack writes in The Washington Post: "President Bush attempted yesterday to calm Americans' anxiousness about the economy, even as he acknowledged that the nation's financial forecast is not entirely sunny because of the credit-market and mortgage crises.

"'There's definitely some storm clouds and concerns. But the underpinning is good, and we'll work our way through this period,' Bush told a group of business and community leaders at a Rotary Club meeting in Fredericksburg, Va.. . . .

"Democratic leaders countered that the White House continues to see the economy through rose-colored glasses. Bush should restore fiscal discipline at home and stop spending billions on another country's civil war, said Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid.

"'President Bush's claim that 'we've had a pretty good economic run here in the country' is detached from the reality of most middle-class Americans,' said Reid (Nev.). 'The middle class is facing declining wages and rising prices for everything from health care to gas to college tuition.'"

Ben Feller writes for the Associated Press: "The White House, eager to put Bush in a community environment, chose the Yak-A-Doo's restaurant in a Holiday Inn. . . . Inside gathered the members of the Rotary Club of Stafford, the Fredericksburg Rotary Club, the Rappahannock Rotary Club and the Fredericksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce.