Froomkin is being a little harsh when he takes Bush to task for playing grabass with volleyball players while Russia launches a furious assault on Georgia:

So where was Bush as Russia launched a major military attack against Georgia? Monkeying around with the U.S. women’s volleyball players — and otherwise amusing himself at the Beijing Olympics.

This is not to suggest that Bush should have sent in the Marines. But his impotence in the face of such a gravely destabilizing move highlights not only his personal loss of stature, but how deeply he has diminished American authority on the world stage generally and, particularly, in the eyes of Russia.

While I on the other hand, after nearly 8 years of this shit, am just grateful that Bush isn’t looking like a total fuckstick playing air guitar:

Or like an imbecilic total douchebag heavily into Cosplay with his good friend, Vlad Putin.

At this point we have to take our blessings where we find them.

I mean if we can’t expect him to pay attention and act serious when one of our nation’s largest cities is literally underwater and several states are devastated, why should we expect him to even pretend he gives a flying fuck when some former Soviet republic gets squished like a bug?

Seven years after the fact, an untidy and unsolved terrorist attack is seemingly resolved in a neat, tidy, dead and silent bundle.

A top government scientist who helped the FBI analyze samples from the 2001 anthrax attacks has died in Maryland from an apparent suicide, just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him for the attacks, the Los Angeles Times has learned.

Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the last 18 years worked at the government’s elite biodefense research laboratories at Ft. Detrick, Md., had been informed of his impending prosecution, said people familiar with Ivins, his suspicious death and the FBI investigation.

Maybe it just is this simple: a man with a God complex playing with anthrax. But if he sent the letters, wouldn’t the writing be identifiable? And why, if all this evidence was so compelling, was there all the effort to pin it on the other (fall) guy?

The sad thing is that, after 8 years of this fucking bullshit, after Monica Goodling-gate, after Alberto Gonzalez, after the complete and illegal politicization of law enforcement and the Justice Department, after lie after lie coming from this administration, we cannot take a fucking thing they say at face value.

If Bush can lie about wiretaps needing warrants, and Rove can order a Democratic Governor prosecuted on flimsy charges and imprisoned beyond any sensible period of time on those charges, who is to say these people can’t pin a crime on a nobody and drive him to suicide. Or even worse.

Add McMakingShitUp: Think Progress reminds us that McCain said at the time, on national televsion, that the anthrax came from Iraq:

MCCAIN: I think we’re doing fine …. I think we’ll do fine. The second phase — if I could just make one, very quickly — the second phase is Iraq. There is some indication, and I don’t have the conclusions, but some of this anthrax may — and I emphasize may — have come from Iraq.

And he’s trying to sell us on trusting his leadership? Our own ISG confirmed that Iraq had no anthrax or other bioweapons program at the time. Was there ever even a shred of evidence to support McCain’s allegation?

Is Michael Mukasey as nutty as Alberto Gonzalez is dishonest?

Congress should explicitly declare war against al Qaeda to make clear the United States can detain suspected members as long as the conflict lasts, U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey said on Monday.

Mukasey urged Congress to make the declaration in a package of legislative proposals to establish a legal process for terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo, in response to a Supreme Court ruling last month that detainees had a constitutional right to challenge their detention.

“Any legislation should acknowledge again and explicitly that this nation remains engaged in an armed conflict with al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated organizations, who have already proclaimed themselves at war with us,” Mukasey said in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute.

“Congress should reaffirm that for the duration of the conflict the United States may detain as enemy combatants those who have engaged in hostilities or purposefully supported al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated organizations,” he said.

I don’t recall recall Francis Biddle telling Congress that December 7th was a date which will live in infamy and asking it to declare war on Japan. Presumably, if President Bush actually wanted a declaration of war against a non-state actor, he could have asked for such a declaration at any point in the last 7 years. A declaration of war is obviously a serious matter, and not one which should be taken to make an attorney general’s task of defending unwise and unconstitutional detention schemes any easier.

Who knows, maybe they’re thinking of issuing some Executive Orders and repopulating Manzanar? I do know that asking Congress to give the Bush administration even more executive powers after his systematic abuse and usurpation of power aided by a largely supine Congress is a non-starter.

Have pledged to fillibuster the telecom immunity billl (via HuffPo):

This is a deeply flawed bill, which does nothing more than offer retroactive immunity by another name. We strongly urge our colleagues to reject this so-called ‘compromise’ legislation and oppose any efforts to consider this bill in its current form. We will oppose efforts to end debate on this bill as long as it provides retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies that may have participated in the President’s warrantless wiretapping program, and as long as it fails to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans.

“If the Senate does proceed to this legislation, our immediate response will be to offer an amendment that strips the retroactive immunity provision out of the bill. We hope our colleagues will join us in supporting Americans’ civil liberties by opposing retroactive immunity and rejecting this so-called ‘compromise’ legislation.

There’s a word to describe these kind of people.

Congratulations to Reps. Pelosi and Hoyer on passing the Nuremburg Defense into US law.

What this bill means to the Telecoms: The lawsuits they face could be dismissed by a court if the Telecoms proved that they had received directives from the administration that said warrantless wiretapping was legal. They already have that evidence so basically they have been give immunity against all lawsuits with this bill.

So we sanction lawbreaking by telecoms and individuals within the Bush administration, just so long as they were obeying orders from the Leader. Befehl ist Befehl.

Go ahead and congratulate yourselves for this achievement. At least the new law has a sunset and so only sanctions an additional 4 years of lawlessness.

McClatchy nee Knight-Ridder is once again out in front reporting on the Bush Administration’s malfeasance. On the front page of the Washington Bureau’s web page:

The Army general who led the investigation into prisoner abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison accused the Bush administration Wednesday of committing “war crimes” and called for those responsible to be held to account.

The remarks by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who’s now retired, came in a new report that found that U.S. personnel tortured and abused detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, using beatings, electrical shocks, sexual humiliation and other cruel practices.

“After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes,” Taguba wrote. “The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”

Taguba, whose 2004 investigation documented chilling abuses at Abu Ghraib, is thought to be the most senior official to have accused the administration of war crimes. “The commander in chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture,” he wrote.

Buried in the Washington Post’s site:

In a statement accompanying the report, retired Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, who led the Army’s first official investigation on Abu Ghraib, said the new evidence suggested a “systematic regime of torture” inside U.S.-run detention camps.

I guess that’s what happens when you suckle up to the powers that be, and later lay off many of your best reporters, especially the ones who didn’t join a myopic editorial staff which still maintains that Bush was telling the truth about those non-existent WMDs and honestly relied on faked and blatantly flawed evidence in pimping the war to the American people like a bunch of Madison Avenue ad men.

PREDICTION: If other major news media pick up this story, Taguba will be labeled by the Right as “disgruntled.” Just because, you know, he was fired by Rumsfeld for making too thorough an investigation.

“They’re beautiful and they can strip a rifle.”

While Bush was paying lip-service to the notion of democracy at the UN yesterday, his administration continues to undermine the practice of democracy at home:

The State Department has interceded in a congressional investigation of Blackwater USA, the private security firm accused of killing Iraqi civilians last week, ordering the company not to disclose information about its Iraq operations without approval from the Bush administration, according to documents revealed Tuesday.

In a letter sent to a senior Blackwater executive Thursday, a State Department contracting official ordered the company “to make no disclosure of the documents or information” about its work in Iraq without permission.

In 2004 Bush’s Viceroy for Iraq, Paul Bremer, enacted Iraqi laws which exempted Blackwater from Iraqi criminal laws. Now, Bush is putting the kibosh on any Congressional oversight into the company’s operations.

Bush is also acting to block Congressional investigation into corruption in the current Iraqi government we are supporting at a cost of hundreds of lives and tens of billions of dollars a year:

In his letter to Rice, Waxman also objected to a move by the department to bar its officials from speaking with committee investigators about corruption inside the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.

An e-mail received by the committee Monday night indicated that the State Department was treating information about corruption as classified, suggesting it might undermine bilateral relations.

“The scope of this prohibition is breathtaking,” Waxman wrote. “On its face, it means that unless the committee agrees to keep the information secret from the public . . . the committee cannot obtain information about whether Mr. Maliki himself has been involved in corruption or has intervened to block corruption investigations.”

Waxman said that previous official reports of corruption within Iraqi ministries were treated as “sensitive but unclassified.” The State Department retroactively classified the reports after his committee requested them, Waxman said.

We’re told the surge, which was supposed to give the Maliki government time to stabilize its grip on Iraq, is working but at the same time Bush is blocking inquiries into whether that government has the capacity to coalesce into an honest, stable government.