Wednesday Roundup: Incompetence Flavor of the Day

The MSM is having a field day with Bush's lack of ability to do his job. We'll start the roundup by looking at the U.S. attorney firings: David Iglesias has a scathing op/ed in the New York Times on why he was fired. I imagine somebody could find the reasons for his being fired in the mass of emails the Justice Department released on the subject — if there weren't a significant gap in the emails released. The Washington Post has nevertheless started to piece together what is in those emails into a continuous narrative, which is good. The New York Times points out how all this very likely leaves the realm of the incompetent and enters the realm of the illegal — not a very subtle way to hint at the I word, if you ask me.

One might think that congressional Democrats were a bit disheartened after President Bush's news conference yesterday where he said he would fight any attempts to subpoena his staff for information on the CIA leak investigation. Not so. They stated they would push forward with the subpoena attempts, and the House Judiciary Committee went ahead and authorized the subpoenas earlier today. This, of course, begs the question of who would enforce the subpoenas when they are issued. Isn't that the executive branch's job? If I recall, that would normally fall to... the U.S. attorneys? What irony. Boy, do I hope I'm wrong on that one.

And Nancy Pelosi doesn't want us to forget about the scandal over the FBI's illegal use of national security letters. Latest reports number the potential violations by the FBI at up to 3000, including 600 that would constitute "serious misconduct." Republicans and Democrats have joined together to chastise the FBI's malfeasance, saying that they could lose the authority to demand telephone, email, and financial records because of this. I think it's about time that the MSM starts paying a little more attention to this issue; not to marginalize the importance of the other cleanup operations congressional Democrats are undertaking, but this one has a more direct and immediate effect on John and Jane American than the others, and it deserves at least equal coverage.

Locally, folks are figuring out why the TYC allegations weren't prosecuted earlier: turns out the county prosecutor didn't bother prosecuting the vast majority of the felony cases that came before him. Well, guess that gives us a good place to set blame, right? Not so fast. Turns out Perry's office knew all along that the TYC allegations weren't being prosecuted, and didn't do squat about it. Puts a different light on his attempts to clean up the commission, doesn't it?

And Eye On Williamson shows the fruit of their constant tracking of the TTC moratorium bill, which would put a two-year hold on tollway privatization for more study, by noting that Corridor Watch now shows Lege support for the bill at 25 Senators and 105 Representatives — a veto-proof majority. Good catch, guys.

Finally, something for you to fire back with next time a Fox News viewer comes at you with their "fair and balanced" facts: turns out that Fox News' audience were more likely to have supported George Bush over Kerry in the '04 elections than gun owners, white evangelicals, Iraq war supporters — in fact every demographic except Republicans. And considering how the Bush was doing with the Iraq war in '04, I imagine those numbers were close too.

Don't forget to check out our Who's Blue? for the week with freshman Representative Allen Vaught. His stories from his time serving in Fallujah are not to be missed. Thanks for reading.