Prairie Recommends: Froomkin Interviews Dorgan

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Those of us who've been privileged to know Byron Dorgan since his days in the North Dakota state capitol in Bismarck know the strength of his expertise, his commitment to the country, and his cut-through-the-chaff wisdom.
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Froomkin's interview with Dorgan on matters economic is must reading.
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Prairie Recommends: Froomkin on Obama's Healthcare Speech

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What Obama needs to say. Because, as 475 Bobcat workers in Bismarck—along with the hundreds of thousands of other Americans—have found out this week: we are all stakeholders in healthcare reform now. Whether we acknowledge that, or not.
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Healthcare reform now. With the public option.
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The Real Bush Legacy

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Just in case you haven't seen Froomkin's summation in the Washington Post, Eschaton and DailyKos have noted this excerpt:

Here is Bush's legacy, in part:

He took the nation to a war of choice under false pretenses -- and left troops in harm's way on two fields of battle. He embraced torture as an interrogation tactic and turned the world's champion of human dignity into an outlaw nation and international pariah. He watched with detachment as a major American city went under water. He was ostensibly at the helm as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression took hold. He went from being the most popular to the most disappointing president, having squandered a unique opportunity to unite the country and even the world behind a shared agenda after Sept. 11. He set a new precedent for avoiding the general public in favor of screened audiences and seemed to occupy an alternate reality. He took his own political party from seeming permanent majority status to where it is today. And he deliberately politicized the federal government, circumvented the traditional policymaking process, ignored expert advice and suppressed dissent, leaving behind a broken government.

Leaves not much to be said, doesn't it? Oh, but Bush intends to have his final say-so tonight.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to tune in. There's an all-important batch of puppy poopsicles in our snowy front yard that needs tending.

Come to think of it, pretty much all of the same....
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Prairie's Reading: Froomkin on “A Culture of Corruption”

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Froomkin writes in his WaPo column about the role of who was directing Monica Goodling in the twisting of the Department of Justice into an ideological corruption of justice with the ticking timebomb of embedded radical right extremists who would remain long after BushCo leaves the White House.

Indeed, it's hard to reach any conclusion other than that White House political operatives masterminded a plan to defile the Justice Department's mission in the short run and to seed its ranks with people who will be in a position to continue the corruption for a long time to come.

Defile.

For their ends justify any means modus operandi, this is just one more sordid chapter in the same sorry saga of the worst presidency and vice-presidency in the history of this nation.

Bush and Chee-knee's names will have legacies. With the worst scoundrels of history.
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The Unforgiven

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Bit by bit, despite their fiercest efforts to hide the truth, the drip-drip-drip of the reality of criminality of the most disgraced [self-disgraced] administration in American history is coming out.

Today, a new chapter is added with the release of Jane Mayer's book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals.

The briefest of introductions already make clear this is a book that should be required reading...by every babbling-head of The Village commentariat, by every Congressperson, by every student, by every voter, lest we forget. It's now #1 on my must-read list.

Froomkin's back, and his column gives a sample, via the words of New York Times columnist Frank Rich on the depths to which the Bush-Cheney Alliance cast aside principle, honor and the rule of law in embracing torture and barbarism as their guiding principle:

"The avalanche of misinformation since 9/11 has compromised prosecutions, allowed other culprits to escape and sent the American military on wild-goose chases....The biggest torture-fueled wild-goose chase, of course, is the war in Iraq."

And further, from Frank Rich, this:

The men were John Ashcroft’s deputy attorney general, James Comey, and an assistant attorney general, Jack Goldsmith. Their sin was to challenge the White House’s don, Dick Cheney, and his consigliere, his chief of staff David Addington, when they circumvented the Geneva Conventions to make torture the covert law of the land.

We've only a few months left of this bunch, the Deciderer is already lookin' forward, those visions of fillin' the ol' coffers dancin' in his head. The Bigtime Dick doubtless figuring what still needs to be shredded or destroyed. Rover runnin' over to Sweden dodging subpoenas....

Much work to be done to get us through election day. Much work to be done to restore the honor of a nation that Chee-knee and Cronies cast aside as recklessly as he shot an old guy in the face.

Will they get away with it? Will they stonewall and obfuscate and conveniently lapse their memories as they did on the Plame case, as they've done on the Tillman case, and laugh all the way to Purgatory?

Maybe they will, but they'll still be The Unforgiven. And the Bush family name and the Cheney family name will live in infamy.