The Empty Overcoats

Well, that didn't take long. The Republican Governors of Texas, Mississippi, Lousiana, Alaska, South Carolina and Idaho yesterday expressed reservations about accepting any simulus money. As we saw with Sarah Palin's behind-the-scenes machinations, the smell of mendacity was pungent. By this morning. Governor Sanford of South Carolina just reneged on his refusal to take the funds. It will be interesting to see what Rick Parry of Texas does since he is the one questioning any strings attached by the federal government.

Poor Representative Cao of Lousiana is facing a recall campaign because of his opposition to the stimulus bill. Cao ran without any party identification on his campaign literature since he faced Rep. Jefferson. Apparently, his constituents didn't have conservatism in mind when they voted.

My son wants The Republicans to keep quiet for awhile. He's tired of their screaming. But what Ed Rollins pointed out, this screaming is a way for them to preserve their funding base--not their political base. The super fatcats, who oppose anything Obama will do for the economy, will stay with the Republicans if they seem to fight Obama. That this leads to future electoral defeats is not an issue for them.

Meanwhile Karl Rove is still out and about, racheting up his complaints that Obama is just adlibbing everything large and small. For his part, Obama made 510 campaign promises and has only fulfilled 80 of them in the last three weeks. He has to pick up the pace.

So Allen Stanford--no relation to Leland--has been under investigation by the feds for 15 years. The fugitive bunco artist was the largest employer on the island of Antigua-Barbuda and a major contributor to both parties. John McCain said he would donate his contribution to charity, the Texas Republicans said they would keep their loot. Stanford is alleged to have been a money-launderer for the Mexican drug cartels. But if he has been under investigation for 15 years, that's usually a tip-off he was involved in spook business. One wonders how much of the financial meltdown and ponzie schemes are spook creations.

Conservative constitutionalist Bruce Fein, the former Deputy Attorney General for President Reagan, is not too happy with Obama for failing to move against the unitary executive. While it's too early in my book, Fein, who testified in favor of impeaching George W. Bush, urges Obama to send the right signals concerning Presidential powers by modifying the Surveillance Act of 2008, which eviscerates the Fourth Amendment, and to void the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Fein is the author of Constitutional Peril: the Life and Death Struggle for our Constitution and Democracy. On the op-ed pages of the Washington Times, he urged the prosecution of Bush Administration officials for torture and other war crimes. We will know more next week as Eric Holder visits Gitmo to examine both the situation of the detainees and the interrogation techniques.

Investigators into the whole Bush Administration policy on torture and black sites indicate the culprits are Richard Addington, Dick Cheney's lawyer, John Yoo, William Haynes, the Pentagon lawyer, and "Fredo" Gonzalez. Most agree that the architectural brains behind all the torture memos and the rationale for the policy was actually Richard Addington and that John Yoo was the ideologue who could formulate it into legalese.

Nancy Pelosi claims that Karl Rove, Harriet Meirs and Josh Bolton will be prosecuted for their failure to testify before Congress. I doubt it.

Meanwhile President Obama signed the Stimulus Bill, unveiled his mortgage plan, bailed out the auto industry and visited Canada. He also seems to have picked his long-time supporter and friend, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sibelius to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Sibelius is a popular Governor in a Republican state and was one of the first major political figures to back Barack Obama and campaigned widely and effectively for him. She was on the short-list for the Vice-Presidency.

It seems to have been a slow week for the White House. I failed to mention the ramp up in military forces sent to Afghanistan--a subject we will discuss in the future.