Tuesday Roundup: Tough Talk from the Senate

Well, another subpoena deadline for the White House has come and gone, and Presidential counsel Fred Fielding has requested another extension to the deadline. But Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy has let the White House know in no uncertain terms that he won't have any of that anymore.

While the president's office requested an extension, the vice president went a step further, admitting that it had dozens of documents relating to the warrantless wiretapping program the subpoena addressed, but claiming that the subpoenas to his office were invalid because they were directed to the Executive Office of the President. Hijinx ensue when Leahy points out that the vice president's office is part of the Executive Office of the President — that information is even on the Executive Office's web site. Of course, Leahy also handed out the specific executive order from 1978 that specified that the vice president's office was part of the EOP. But the first way was funnier.

And if that isn't enough Straight Talk from the Senate Express for you, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin's got some more for you. He is to my knowledge the highest-ranking voice so far publicly calling for the replacement of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The White House, of course, responded by affirming their confidence in al-Maliki. Most seem to be painting this as another effort to define Congress' position on the conflict in Iraq, as we mentioned yesterday, but I think it's difficult to deny that al-Maliki's perceived ties to the U.S. and the withdrawal of al-Sadr's ministers from the ostensible coalition government have been a serious blow to attempts at unification.

If you're a political pundit, you probably spent most of yesterday analyzing Rove's statements on the Sunday talk show circuit. Popular opinion has it that Rove's criticism of Clinton as having too many negatives to win a general election was, as Dan Froomkin puts it, "a colossal head fake." They point out that Rove did quite the same thing to Kerry in '04, and Rove lieutenant Matthew Dowd disclosed afterward that it was done because they knew that Republicans speaking out against a candidate would be seen as a sign of the strength of the candidate, and they wanted to make Kerry look strong so they wouldn't have to face Edwards in a general election. This opinion was strengthened by the fact that Rove refused to comment on Obama in the same fashion.

Honestly, not that the claim doesn't make sense, but I can't wait until we can stop assuming that every breath Rove takes is some sort of triple-back double-lutz super-fake designed to bring about the downfall of the Democratic party. Any day now, right? I mean, this is all a possibility. And so is the fact that he's bitter that the cornerstone of her campaign is beating up on his BFF in the Oval Office. Some of his statements did seem a bit more couched in hurt feelings than in actual sound reasoning. But hey, maybe that's just me.

In case you hadn't heard, the Texas Republican straw poll is coming up, and Ron Paul is doing his level best to try and figure out a way to win it. Huckabee has some good momentum from the Iowa straw poll, and if he's going to keep that train running, he needs to fend off Ron Paul and all other challengers and get a win here. He's getting a start already on the tried and true political tactics of going after his opponents, so maybe he'll have a crafty plan for the straw poll. We'll see.

Finally today, Fred Thompson is back in the news, but not for any kind of coverage he would be happy about: A blogger has filed an FEC complaint against him saying that the amount of money he's raised and the amount of time he has spent are too much for him to be simply "testing the waters," and that he is in fact more or less running for President without all of the necessary restrictions, filings, and so on. Also, another member of his campaign has bailed out, this time from the press shop. It is starting to feel like Fred Thompson simply waited too long.