Addington "doesn't care about the Constitution"

* emptywheel tells howie kurtz to fuck off, and she tells a story. I wonder what ron will say.

* this via calipendence:

"Sources have confirmed to CBS4 News that conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh has been detained at Palm Beach International Airport for the possible possession of illegal prescription drugs Monday evening.

Limbaugh was returning on a flight from the Dominican Republic when officials found the drugs, among them Viagra."

ummm - isn't he on probation?

* wolcott:

"In their apoplectic fury over The New York Times's publishing a front page expose of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, the White House and their lackeys may be backing themselves into a corner.

Consider what's happened in the last 24 hours. Bush has called the disclosure "disgraceful," looking far angrier (or fake-angrier) than he ever did about the Katrina fuckup. Cheney, of course, released some deep-stomach rumbles. Tony Snow made his displeasure known. And in a cloud of dust rode the Ox-Bow posse, fashioning a necktie for Bill Keller and company. Congressman Peter King, the sort of bullyboy who would have been right at home planted next to Joe McCarthy during the Red Scare, urged criminal prosecution. Today alone I've seen Newt Gingrich employing his full-press sneer to decry the "pathology" of the Times is revealing security secrets, Hugh "The Iceman Cometh" Hewitt demagoguing the issue on CNN, the blue glint in his eyes demanding retribution...
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What a gummy uproar. One so loud and ferocious that there almost has to be some follow-through, otherwise you are going to have one frustrated batch of highly indignants. They want the administration to show the Times and the rest of the press who's boss. The neocon contingent is already dismayed with the tiptoeing around Iran's nuclear program, with Ledeen and Perle lodging protests. If the pushback against the Times peters out, if the posse disbands shortly after mounting up, the White House is going to look weak in the bugged-out eyes of its mutant defenders. It'll be interesting to see if the controversy builds or fades over the next few days, and whether or not the Times-bashers will be compelled to call their own bluff."

* froomkin:

"In this week's New Yorker (not available online), Jane Mayer profiles David S. Addington, Cheney's chief of staff and longtime legal adviser, who has "played a central role in shaping the Administration's legal strategy for the war on terror.

"Known as the New Paradigm, this strategy rests on a reading of the Constitution that few legal scholars share -- namely, that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority to disregard virtually all previously known legal boundaries, if national security demands it. Under this framework, statutes prohibiting torture, secret detention, and warrantless surveillance have been set aside."

She writes: "Conventional wisdom holds that September 11th changed everything, including the thinking of Cheney and Addington. . . . But a close look at the nearly twenty-year collaboration . . . suggests that in fact their ideology has not changed much. It seems clear that Addington was able to promote vast executive powers after September 11th in part because he and Cheney had been laying the political groundwork for years."

Mayer notes that former secretary of state Colin Powell recently told friends that Addington "doesn't care about the Constitution.""