821 more days of George W. Bush. God help us

* via tpmm:

""The investigation of how the Republican leadership handled the issue has provoked turmoil and finger-pointing in [House Speaker Dennis] Hastert's [R-IL] office, congressional sources say.

"Some of Hastert's principal aides have hired criminal defense lawyers to represent them during the investigation. Ted Van Der Meid, Hastert's chief in-house counsel, has retained Washington, D.C.-based attorney Lee Blalack, who also represents convicted former Congressman Duke Cunningham."

* tpmm:

"Armed with his personal lawyer, House Speaker Dennis Hastert began his private testimony today before the House panel investigating the Foley affair... Also testifying today was Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), which works to get Republicans elected to Congress. The two men disagree on who knew what, when about Foley's misbehavior with teenaged pages."

* tpmm:

"For five months this year, the House intelligence committee had a crucial intelligence report on the increasing threat of terrorism in the wake of the Iraq War -- yet not a single member read it. That's including the panel's chairman, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-IL) and the ranking member Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA).

In fact, an untold number of classified documents were kept from the members of the vital oversight committee from at least April to September of this year, according to the chairman's spokesman. In an interview yesterday, he blamed the months-long delay on technical problems with the "equipment" which handles the reports.
[]
update: Ware clarified that the "equipment failure" spanned only two months, March and April, not five, as I reported. For the next three months, the equipment worked fine -- the report was simply lost.

hysterical.

* Joe Cirincione at TP:

" Senior Bush administration officials wanted North Korea to test a nuclear weapon because it would prove their point that the regime must be overthrown.

This astonishing revelation was buried in the middle of a Washington Post story published yesterday.
[]
The revelation that some officials secretly wanted North Korea to test their nuclear weapons is evidence of how the administration’s national security policy has become completely divorced from reality."

(mind you, Cirincione is a an expert on these matters)

* tristero:

"A different country, with a more involved population, would demand Bush and his cabinet immediately resign. Ain't gonna happen. A different country, one which held its leaders accountable for its safety, would have impeached Bush by September 19, 2001. But the United States in 2006 is not that kind of country. Barring anything unforeseen, like Bush getting a brain transplant or converting to Islam - both far more probable than he will change direction and that he will do so in such a way that things will get better in Iraq - there's at least 821 days filled with unspeakable tragedy ahead for Iraq, and the US.

[]

Eight hundred and twenty-one more days of George W. Bush. God help us.'