Scooter Libby was not the only Bush administration official to be indicted this month. In September, the White House's top procurement official, David Safavian, was arrested in connection to his ties to GOP superlobbyist Jack Abramoff; early this month, Safavian was indicted on the same basis. And now, as Josephine Hearn reports for The Hill, a key Republican Senator is taking the investigation into Abramoff's shady dealings directly into Bush's backyard.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has called on the former No. 2 official at the Interior Department to testify before a Senate panel investigating lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his involvement with Indian gambling tribes.

The official, J. Steven Griles, who served as deputy interior secretary from 2001 to the beginning of this year, was involved in efforts to help two of Abramoff’s clients — the Louisiana Coushatta tribe and the Saginaw Chippewa tribe of Michigan — fend off casino proposals from rival tribes and may have done so while engaged in employment negotiations with Abramoff, recent news reports have said. Griles has said through spokespeople that he did not play a major role in endeavors to aid the tribes.

The development marks the first time McCain has taken direct aim at the administration during the Indian Affairs Committee’s year-and-a-half-long investigation of Abramoff, his associate Michael Scanlon and their efforts to extract more than $80 million in lobbying and public-relations fees from Indian tribes.

[...]

Griles is expected to appear alongside Italia Federici at the hearing tomorrow. Federici, who was an aide to Interior Secretary Gale Norton during her 1996 Senate bid, reportedly served as a go-between linking Griles and Abramoff. Federici is president of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, a group founded by Norton and anti-tax activist Grover Norquist.

As bad as the Libby indictment is for the administration, it's hard to envision the Republican Party, both in Congress and the White House, extricating itself and its members from Abramoff. Simply too many key Republican figures, from former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) to Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) to activists like Norquist and Ralph Reed to administration officials like Safavian (and perhaps Griles), have had intimate contacts with Abramoff over the years to wiggle out of this one. If McCain is tenacious -- as every indication says he will be -- tomorrow's hearing could be very uncomfortable for the GOP.

USA Today's team of Susan Page and Judy Keen write up the results of the latest polling from Gallup, which finds President Bush's approval spread at 41-56, unchanged since last week.

When Gallup asked in 1993 whether the first President Bush's tenure was a success or failure, 53% called it a success even though he had been defeated for re-election a year before. During Clinton's presidency, a majority never called his tenure a failure. Only once, after the health care debacle in 1994, did a plurality say it was a failure, by 50%-44%.

In January 1999, after he had been impeached by the House and was awaiting a Senate trial, 71% called Clinton's tenure a success.

But in August, by 51%-47%, those surveyed by USA TODAY called the current Bush presidency a failure. That proportion grew to 55%-42% in the poll over the weekend.

[...]

The USA TODAY poll found little optimism that Bush's turnaround strategy would succeed. By 55%-41%, those surveyed said the remaining three years of Bush's presidency would be a failure.

Other key pieces of data suggest that the American public decreasingly trust the administration.

Based on what you have heard or read, do you think Dick Cheney was aware of Lewis Libby’s actions in this matter [the Plame investigation], or was Cheney not aware?

Yes, aware -- 55
No, not aware -- 29

Do you think the Bush administration deliberately misled the American public about whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, or not?

Yes, deliberately misled -- 53
No, did not -- 45

As I noted in an earlier post, many Democrats will jump at the opportunity to shift the focus of the national political debate to the judiciary, as a majority of Americans believe that Roe should be upheld. But given the administration's lagging numbers on trustworthiness, not to mention the myriad of scandals facing the Republican Party across the country, it would be a real mistake by the Democrats to ease up their rhetoric on GOP ethical problems.

In this week's issue of Time, Michael Duffy does some heavy-duty reporting on the indictment of Scooter Libby and digs out the following key piece of information.

Fitzgerald's indictment sets the stage for either a trial next spring or a plea bargain that almost certainly would mean jail time for Libby. That possibility has already been discussed: a source close to the investigation told TIME that Fitzgerald and Libby's attorney Joseph Tate discussed possible plea options before the indictment was issued last week. But the deal was scotched because the prosecutor insisted that Libby do some "serious" jail time.

If Libby already has a plea bargain on his mind, is there a possibility that last week's indictment on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice are just the a bargaining chip used by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to gain more information? It's very difficult to say.

Fitzgerald has said that "the bulk of this investigation is over." Nevertheless, he did empanel a new grand jury to continue looking at the case. What is clear, however, is that Fitzgerald is one of the most tenacious prosecutors in the country. And if he is intent on convicting all who have committed crimes in the case, he will not stop at anything before he succeeds.

President Bush's nomination of doctrinaire conservative Samuel Alito -- "there will be no one to the right of Sam Alito on this Court," says NBC legal analyst/George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley -- is clearly a move to wipe the legal and ethical issues surrounding the administration and the GOP off of the front pages. But it is also an attempt to distract from real and pressing issues facing the country, such as the growing American death toll in Iraq. The AP's Thomas Wagner passes on the disturbing numbers from October.

Six American soldiers were killed in separate attacks Monday and a Marine died in action the day before, making October the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Iraq since January. U.S. jets struck insurgent targets near the Syrian border and at least six people were killed.

Four soldiers from the Army's Task Force Baghdad soldiers died Monday when their patrol struck a roadside bomb in Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of Baghdad in an area known as the "triangle of death."

Two other soldiers from the 29th Brigade Combat Team were also killed in a bombing Monday near Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad. The U.S. military also said a Marine was killed Sunday near Amiriyah, 25 miles west of Baghdad.

Those deaths raised the death toll for October to more than 90, the highest monthly total since January when 107 American service members died. The latest deaths brought to 2,025 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003.

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said there is no readily apparent explanation for why the number of U.S. casualties was higher in October than in previous months. But he said the insurgents' roadside bombs — which the military calls improvised explosive devices, or IEDs — are getting more sophisticated. [emphasis added]

Increasing numbers of Americans (not to mention innocent Iraqis) are losing their lives in this conflict, and the Pentagon cannot figure out a "readily apparent explanation" for the increase in American deaths. No wonder President Bush doesn't want the public to be paying attention to Iraq.

In the ninth through eleventh grafs of their article today in The Washington Post, Dana Milbank and Carol D. Leonnig report that despite claims by some that Karl Rove has been exonerated, George W. Bush's key staffer is still under investigation.

But two legal sources intimately familiar with Fitzgerald's tactics in this inquiry said they believe Rove remains in significant danger. They described Fitzgerald as being relentlessly thorough but also conservative throughout this prosecution -- and his willingness to consider Rove's eleventh-hour pleading of a memory lapse is merely a sign of Fitzgerald's caution.

The two legal sources point to what they consider Fitzgerald's careful decision not to charge Libby with the leak of a covert agent's identity, given that the prosecutor had amassed considerable evidence that Libby gave classified information, which he knew from his job should not be made public, to reporters. Another prosecutor might have stretched to make a leak charge, on the theory that a jury would believe, based on other actions, that Libby acted with bad intentions.

Another warning sign for Rove was in the phrasing of Friday's indictment of Libby. Fitzgerald referred to Rove in those charging papers as a senior White House official and dubbed him "Official A." In prosecutorial parlance, this kind of awkward pseudonym is often used for individuals who have not been indicted in a case but still face a significant chance of being charged. No other official in the investigation carries such an identifier.

With the nomination of supreme conservative Samuel Alito, President Bush has attempted to shift the focus away from the many scandals plaguing both his administration and the Republican Party as a whole. Although some Democrats -- particularly those on the left fringe -- will embrace this change of debate (because they do want Americans to line up over Roe), they would be unwise to stop hammering away at Republican ethical woes.

"The last time I checked, being a jerk is not an indictable offense."

-- Former GOP Rep. J.C. Watts, on the indictment of Tom DeLay

Link.

Check out this compilation of the top clips of the week provided by The Hotline (a free Real Player file).

The AP's Ron Fournier reports that President Bush has nominated Samuel Alito, a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. The AP supplements Fournier's coverage with a profile by Donna Cassatta, who calls Alito a "strong conservative" and notes that other have called him "Scalito" and "Scalia-lite," and a third article by Gina Holland, who lays out Alito's history of rulings to curtail abortion rights. Along these lines, Think Progress presents some of Alito's less than progressive stances on issues.

President Bush will get the fight so desperately desired by the right fringe of American politics. People for the American Way, a leading liberal interest group, has pledged to "wage massive national effort to defeat" Alito, and Senate Republicans might choose to invoke the nuclear option to stop the Democratic effort to block Alito's nomination. Let's just hope that this epic struggle is worth the strife and bad blood it will instill.

[Update 8:26 AM Pacific]: Atrios rightly notes that much of the focus will now turn to Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), the pro-choice moderate who chairs the Judiciary Committee. Will Specter work hard to help confirm a nominee with a strong record of limiting abortion rights? He did in 1991 (a year before his reelection bid), when he strongly supported the nomination of Clarence Thomas. Or will he help block a nominee who aimed to overturn Roe? He did in 1987 (a year after his reelection bid), when he helped stop the nomination of Robert Bork.

The AP's Deb Riechmann has the story.

President Bush's next nominee to the Supreme Court is likely to have a strong conservative judicial record, and sources close to the White House say the leading candidates are federal appeals judges Samuel Alito and J. Michael Luttig.

The expected nomination on Monday comes just four days after Harriet Miers, the president's first pick to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, withdrew her name after blistering opposition from some of Bush's most conservative backers.

Alito and Luttig both have strong conservative credentials and would be embraced by the president's political base. Others thought to be under consideration, according to conservatives monitoring the selection process, were federal judges Karen Williams, Priscilla Owen, Alice Batchelder and Michael McConnell, as well as Michigan Supreme Court Justice Maura Corrigan.

Will the swift nomination of O'Connor's replacement remove the indictment of Scooter Libby and the ongoing investigation of Karl Rove from the limelight? Only time will tell. But if President Bush truly wants to shift the focus away from the many problems facing his administration, he might indeed decide to nominate a judge with a record of opposition to Roe, and thus pick the fight with the Democrats that might inevitably end up with the Republican attempt to invoke the nuclear option.

(A question to ponder: if the Republicans successfully invoke the nuclear option to forward the nomination of a pro-life/anti-choice conservative to the Supreme Court, are Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's presidential ambitions resuscitated? [His potential legal woes not withstanding.])

Happy Halloween.

In the 11th graf of an article in tomorrow's issue of The New York Times, Todd S. Purdum hints at a possible motive behind Scooter Libby's alleged perjury and obstruction of justice.

If the charges in the indictment are true, it is by no means clear why Mr. Libby would have told investigators and the grand jury in March of last year that Mr. Russert was his source, except that he might have believed that Mr. Russert and the other journalists involved would not testify. [emphasis added]

In related news, National Journal's team of Murray Waas and Paul Singer (no relation) report that the man Vice President Dick Cheney likely will select as his new chief of staff, David Addington, may have been involved in effort to discredit Ambassador Joe Wilson, who had penned an Op-Ed for The Times undercutting President Bush's claim that Saddam Hussein had sought uranium from Niger.

There is no evidence that Addington has done anything outside the law, or that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has regarded him as anything other than a witness during the two-year probe that led to Libby's indictment. There is also no evidence that Addington was cognizant that Libby had allegedly leaked classified information on Plame to the media.

But Addington was deeply immersed in the White House damage-control campaign to deflect criticism that the Bush administration misrepresented intelligence information to make the case to go to war with Iraq, according to administration and congressional sources.

Moreover, as a pivotal member of the vice president's office, Addington also attended strategy sessions in 2003 on how to discredit Wilson when the former ambassador publicly charged that the Bush administration misled the country in pushing its case for war, according to attorneys in the CIA leak probe.

Further, Addington played a leading role in 2004 on behalf of the Bush administration when it refused to give the Senate Intelligence Committee documents from Libby's office on the alleged misuse of intelligence information regarding Iraq. Because Addington may be in line to succeed Libby, the Intelligence Committee-White House battle over the documents has sparked new interest on Capitol Hill.

The long expose does not reflect well on Addington, but it is an interesting read for those interested in getting the whole story of the leak of Valerie Plame's identity.

"It is time to reset and recalibrate."

-- Ken Duberstein, former chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan, calling on President Bush to bring new blood into the administration.

Link.

Not only has The Washington Post been polling the nation over the past few days, the paper has also surveyed voters in Virginia, who will go to the polls in nine days to decide a competitive gubernatorial. Michael D. Shear and Claudia Deane write up the data from the poll.

Democrat Timothy M. Kaine has taken a narrow lead in Virginia's governor's race, buoyed by newfound strength in Northern Virginia's outer suburbs and an electorate turned off by what it considers the negative tone of his Republican opponent, according to a new Washington Post poll.

Kaine leads Republican Jerry W. Kilgore among the most likely voters by three percentage points, 47 to 44, according to the poll, which has a three percentage point margin of error. Independent candidate H. Russell Potts Jr. was supported by 4 percent of the voters.

[...]

Kaine improved his standing in the past 45 days. A Post poll conducted Sept. 6 to 9 showed the lieutenant governor trailing Kilgore by four percentage points among all voters and seven percentage points among likely voters.

This will be an all out battle over the next few days, especially given the sheer number of political staffers in the neighboring District of Columbia.

What's more, both parties understand that there are national implications for the Kaine-Kilgore contest, along with the gubernatorial race in New Jersey (where Democratic Senator Jon Corzine has just opened up a double digit lead). If the Democrats are able to win in both states next Tuesday, they will be able to credibly claim momentum in both blue and red states; accordingly, Republicans desperately need a Kilgore win.

In other campaign 2005 news, the AP's David Crary lays out the ballot measures voters in seven states will face this November.

In the first round of polling to be conducted entirely after the withdrawal of Harriet Miers and the indictment of Scooter Libby, The Washington Post and ABC News find President Bush's approval rating at an all-time low. Richard Morin and Claudia Deane write up the results for The Post.

A majority of Americans say the indictment of senior White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby signals broader ethical problems in the Bush administration, and nearly half say the overall level of honesty and ethics in the federal government has fallen since President Bush took office, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News survey.

The poll, conducted Friday night and yesterday, found that 55 percent of the public believes the Libby case indicates wider problems "with ethical wrongdoing" in the White House, while 41 percent believes it was an "isolated incident." And by a 3 to 1 ratio, 46 percent to 15 percent, Americans say the level of honesty and ethics in the government has declined rather than risen under Bush.

In the aftermath of the latest crisis to confront the White House, Bush's overall job approval rating has fallen to 39 percent, the lowest of his presidency in Post-ABC polls. Barely a third of Americans -- 34 percent -- think Bush is doing a good job ensuring high ethics in government, which is slightly lower than President Bill Clinton's standing on this issue when he left office.

This poll contains both good news and bad news for the Democrats. Of course the fact that the President continues to drop in the eyes of the electorate can give Democrats some hope of big gains in the 2006 midterms. However, the fact that only "55 percent of the public believes the Libby case indicates wider problems 'with ethical wrongdoing' in the White House" -- a number likely less than the President's disapproval rating -- means that the Democrats have much more work to do if they want to portray this Republican administration as being corrupt.

There's a lot to talk about this weekend, with the indictment of Scooter Libby and the withdrawal of Harriet Miers. If you want some idle chatter on these, and other issues...

CBS' "Face the Nation" -- Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

NBC's "Meet the Press" -- Presidential historian Michael Beschloss and former White House chiefs of staff Kenneth Duberstein, Hamilton Jordan and Leon Panetta.

ABC's "This Week" -- Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Harry Reid (D-NV), and Time reporter Matthew Cooper.

"Fox News Sunday" -- Sens. Trent Lott (R-MS) and Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), former independent counsel Robert Ray and defense lawyer Bill Taylor.

CNN's "Late Edition" -- Sens. Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Sam Brownback (R-KS); American Values president Gary Bauer; former secretaries of state Madeleine Albright and Alexander Haig Jr.; former attorney general Richard Thornburgh, former Clinton counsel Lanny Davis and Reid.

"This Week" sounds fairly good tomorrow, though Beschloss is alwaying interesting.

Today, the AP's Jesse J. Holland writes the following about the President's possible selection process for the Supreme Court.

Harriet Miers' failed Supreme Court nomination is driving President Bush back to a tried-and-true formula for filling a high court vacancy: tapping a federal or state judge with a solid conservative paper trail.

Last month, I penned an editorial on the judicial selection process for The Undecided, a political journal published by students at Pomona College. My premise: President Bush should not limit his choice to a sitting judge; rather, he should nominate someone with a background that at least includes experience in a legislative or executive branch.

At the commencement of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearings on Judge John G. Roberts’ nomination for Chief Justice, Sen. Richard Lugar (D-Ind.) proclaimed Roberts to be “supremely qualified” to serve on the Court. To buttress this claim, Lugar cited Roberts’ exceptional command of law: his graduation magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, a clerkship with then-Associate Justice William Rehnquist, tenures as Associate White House Counsel in the Reagan administration and principal Deputy Solicitor General in the first Bush administration, and service on the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Indeed, Roberts does have an impressively extensive grasp of law, as evinced by his nearly twenty hours of testimony before the Judiciary Committee over the course of four days in September. No one on the left or on the right would truthfully deny this. But the debate over Roberts’ grasp of American jurisprudence leaves aside a more fundamental question that should be asked about every nominee to the Supreme Court: will he be a good Justice?

While Roberts has an ample background inside the judicial branch, his résumé is conspicuously devoid of experience in legislative or executive posts. Roberts has never run for political office, and save for judicial work in two presidential administrations, he has not served in politically appointed positions. As a result, Roberts has never been required to engage in the type of compromise and horse trading that is necessary in government – and it’s unclear that he is particularly skilled in these areas.

Rightly or wrongly, the Supreme Court is an inherently political institution. That is not to say that the Court is, or was intended to be, a super-legislature. However, just like in any other democratic organization, members of the Court must build coalitions and foster relationships in order to be ultimately successful. The political skills honed in the halls of Congress and inside the walls of the West Wing prove highly useful when attempting to expand a divided 5-4 decision into a decisive 7-2 ruling or wooing the key swing vote when the most important issues are on the line. Perhaps this is why more than two-fifths of all Supreme Court Justices have served in a legislature and more than one-fifth have served in Congress. Perhaps this is also why, with the exception of the period between the retirement of Justice Hugo Black in 1971 and the confirmation of Justice O’Connor in 1981, the Supreme Court has always had at least one member with legislative experience.

With the pending retirement of Justice O’Connor, President Bush has the opportunity to further shape the Supreme Court for decades to come. Although the President will inevitably be lobbied to nominate someone who, like John Roberts, is deep in judicial experience but weak in legislative or executive background, he would be remiss in his duty if he neglected to consider a member of Congress or a governor for the seat (seven governors have gone on to serve on the Court). Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) has said as much during the hearing process.

Some might claim that politicians, particularly legislators, are more prone to “judicial activism.” The term itself is merely a ruse by conservatives to denigrate the liberal justices of the Warren Court era. (What irked conservatives most was not how certain Justices reach their conclusions, but rather that those conclusions were liberal.) The fact remains that conservatives are not opposed to bouts of actual judicial activism. As Paul Gerwitz and Chad Golder note in a July, 2005, Op-Ed for The New York Times, judging by propensity to overturn Congressional law, Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas – the originalists – are two of the three most “activist” members of the Court.

Leaving aside the debate over judicial activism (as opposed to liberalism), there is no shortage of Republican legislators who would be well suited for the Court. In July, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) listed off a handful, including Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), a stalwart conservative. Gregg, a lawyer who previously served four terms in the U.S. House and two terms as New Hampshire Governor, would be a particularly good fit for the Supreme Court given his proven ability to work with people of all beliefs and ideologies to achieve results.

And what, if not achieving tangible results, is the purpose of the Supreme Court? Although it is imperative for each Justice to have a firm grasp of the law, Supreme Court decisions should not be entirely academic and rhetorical flourishes. Rooted in the law and the Constitution, decisions must also take into consideration the ramifications of each case – even if some on either the far right or the far left believe this to be “judicial activism.” Those who have served on the bench for decades can certainly do this, but who could better gauge the political consequences of a ruling better than one who has stood for public office? Who could better understand the Constitution’s checks and balances, and more importantly their relevance to the lives of Americans, than one who has served in multiple branches of government?

The Supreme Court need not consist solely of theoreticians and brilliant legal minds. President Bush and future presidents would be well served to nominate men and women who both have a command of Constitutional issues and the real-world experience necessary to be the best Supreme Court Justice – even if it enables the naysayers to continue to complain about perceived “judicial activism.”

In yesterday's indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff Scooter Libby, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald laid out the case that Libby had knowingly deceived both investigators and the grand jury about his role in the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. Today, as Pete Yost reports for the AP, Libby's lawyer sketched out his client's defense.

The lawyer for Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide is outlining a possible criminal defense that is a time-honored tradition in Washington scandals: A busy official immersed in important duties cannot reasonably be expected to remember details of long-ago conversations.

Friday's indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby involves allegations that as Cheney's chief of staff he lied to FBI agents and a federal grand jury.

Libby, who resigned immediately, was operating amid "the hectic rush of issues and events at a busy time for our government," according to a statement released by his attorney, Joseph Tate.

"We are quite distressed the special counsel (Patrick Fitzgerald) has not sought to pursue alleged inconsistencies in Mr. Libby's recollection and those of others and to charge such inconsistencies as false statements," Tate continued.

"As lawyers, we recognize that a person's recollection and memory of events will not always match those of other people, particularly when they are asked to testify months after the events occurred."

[...]

The facts, prosecutor Fitzgerald said, are that the month before the conversation with Russert, Libby learned about the CIA status of Valerie Plame from Cheney, from a senior CIA officer and from an undersecretary of state.

Yost notes that this same defense was used by those implicated in the Iran-Contra affair, to varying levels of success. It's hard to gauge how the 12 jurors selected for this case will read that defense, but to me, it's not entirely compelling.

bumped up from earlier this week

Every month or so, I write a column for The Collage, a campus newspaper founded by current New York Times executive editor Bill Keller. October's topic: the need for real objectivity in reporting.

This month, sophomore director George Clooney scored a success with his historical docudrama, “Good Night, and Good Luck.” Set during the height of the Cold War, the film details the successful effort CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow to undercut the specious charges of Red-baiting Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Underlying the movie is the belief that there is a truth in the world, and that at times the journalistic trend towards the false objectivity of giving each side of a debate equal weight must be thrown out the window. As Clooney explained to Jon Stewart, “The reason I did it was because it thought it was an interesting time to talk about the responsibilities of the fourth estate.” Murrow, as played exquisitely by David Strathairn, becomes fed up with simply repeating McCarthy’s unfounded claims of Communist infiltration of the government and devotes an entire program to exposing McCarthy as a sham. As a result of his efforts, and those of others like him, McCarthy was relegated to a position of historical ignominy.

Reporters today would be well-served by taking a lesson from Murrow. In an interview with The Hill newspaper in June, Joe Klein – author of “Primary Colors” (the novel upon which the 1998 Mike Nichols/John Travolta film was based) – offered an argument similar to that of Clooney. “A lot of times, especially on television, there is this kind of false balance where one side says, ‘The sky is blue,’ the other side says, ‘No, the sky is red,’” Klein said. “And you have to give ‘the sky is red’ as much credibility as ‘the sky is blue’ just because one side or the other said it. That’s nonsense. We have a job to seriously analyze the world and to figure out what comes closest to approximating the truth.”

Are there dangers to having reporters divine fact from fiction, truth from spin? Yes. If a journalist believes that he is offering an unabridged truth but is instead propagating falsehoods, the public can be mislead. Case in point, New York Times reporter Judith Miller, whose reporting on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) implied a need to go to war in Iraq.

Miller relied on huckster Ahmad Chalabi for “proof” that Saddam Hussein had WMD without taking Chalabi’s desire to unseat Hussein into account. Later, she was one of the few journalists that the administration contacted to contradict Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s claims that Iraq had not sought uranium for WMD. As a result of receiving this leak, Miller became embroiled in the investigation of the outing of Wilson’s wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame, and eventually went to jail for 85 days to protect her sources, including the Vice President’s Chief of Staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

Despite the danger of reporters peddling false memes, the effects of journalists neglecting their duty of real objectivity – rather than simply repeating what either side says – are far worse. When members of the media allow spurious claims to go unchallenged, they empower politicians to lie without consequence and enable demagogues like McCarthy to arise. America is in desperate need of a new Edward R. Murrow; hopefully “Good Night, And Good Luck” will inspire a generation of them.

National

While the Democrats still trail Republicans in cash-on-hand, for the first time this year, there was some parity in the two parties' fundraising, reports CQ Politics Weekly (a free email service).

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) reported raising $5.4 million in September. That made it the first month in the 2006 campaign cycle that the DCCC has outraised its Republican House counterpart, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), which took in $3.9 million last month.

The NRCC still had more available cash than the DCCC as October began: $17.6 million to $11.3 million. But the DCCC significantly narrowed the gap in September. Not only did the DCCC raise more money than the NRCC in September, it also spent less than half what the Republican committee spent last month.

The DCCC reported making a debt repayment of $367,000 last month and began October with $2.6 million in remaining debt. The NRCC is debt-free.

The DCCC’s strong September showing was attributed partly to the contributions of House Democratic incumbents, who transferred about $1.5 million to the committee from their own campaign treasuries.

The DCCC also received contributions of at least $25,000 each from 28 individual donors (including a dozen donors who gave the maximum annual contribution of $26,700 allowed by law). The NRCC, meanwhile, received $25,000 from just four individual donors last month.

In other national political news, the Democratic pollster/strategist team of Stan Greenberg and James Carville assess the status of the national electorate and find their party to be in a relatively sound state leading up to the 2006 midterm elections.

Even before the announcement of any criminal indictments at the heart of the Bush White House, Republicans and the president himself were already facing their own shattered standing with the country. We send this memo as an important benchmark, as events perhaps worsen for the Republicans. About 60 percent of the country has settled into dark conclusions about the direction of the country, the economy, and the war. On all measures, they have hit their low point. That the Democrats have a 9-point lead in the congressional contest overall – and nearly as great a lead when we ask using the actual names of incumbent members – is actually the least interesting
measure of these times.

Most interesting is the collapse of confidence in the Republicans on some critical attributes related to public service – on being trustworthy and in-touch, having the right priorities and new ideas, on caring for people and putting the public interest first. On many of these key measures of public support, not even 40 percent believe they apply to the Republicans.

The other interesting development, before the new phase in the White House, is the new signs of life among the Democrats. As you know, we have been quite critical of the Democrats for not being more expressive about their beliefs and plans and bold enough in their thinking, but this poll shows some reduced negativity about the Democrats and some greater respect on change, new ideas, putting the public interest first, and being for families. While Democrats remain at 48 percent in this poll – as in virtually every poll since the beginning of the year – they are poised to make gains over the Republicans, who have fallen below 40 percent of the vote.

The emerging images of the party are setting up the 2006 election as a big choice – with the Democrats for change and cleaning house in Washington, electing people who will put the American people first and work for everyone, not just the few.

Click the above link for more data and analysis.

New Jersey

Last year, quirky polling showed President Bush within striking distance of John Kerry in New Jersey. Nevertheless, Kerry eventually went on to win the state by a respectable 53-46 margin. A repeat of this situation appears to be occuring in this year's gubernatorial contest between New Jersey Senator Jon Corzine (D) and businessman Doug Forrester (R), as polling earlier in the month showed the two candidates running neck-and-neck. And just as Kerry pulled ahead last year, Corzine is pulling ahead this year, according to the latest Marist poll.

Democrat Jon Corzine has pulled ahead of his Republican opponent Doug Forrester by 10 points among New Jersey voters likely to vote on Election Day. Earlier this month, Corzine and Forrester were neck and neck. Now, Corzine receives the support of 50% of likely voters compared with 40% for Forrester. One percent mentions another candidate, and 9% are undecided. When undecided voters are asked which candidate they are leaning toward, the margin separating the candidates remains at 10 points with 51% for Jon Corzine and 41% for Doug Forrester. 7% of likely voters are still undecided.

If New Jersey is a foregone conclusion for the Democrats (we're not suggesting it is; we're just raising the hypothetical), does the national attention turn to Virginia, where the gubernatorial contest is actually close, or California, where Arnold Schwarzenegger's governorship is on the line with an unpopular slate of initiatives on the ballot?

Nevada

Democrats were ecstatic last month when news broke that Jack Carter, son of the 39th President, was considering a challenge to conservative Republican Senator John Ensign. But as the Associated Press reports, Carter has his work cut out for him.

[The Mason-Dixon poll] found 59 percent support for Ensign, who is seeking a second term in November 2006, and 25 percent support for Carter, the Democratic son of former President Jimmy Carter. Sixteen percent of respondents said they were undecided.

Carter, an investment company owner who has lived in Las Vegas since 2003, has said he was considering challenging Ensign. His father lost presidential races in Nevada in 1976 and 1980.

Carter called the Review-Journal poll "the baseline from which I will compare my campaign in coming months if I run."

The survey said Carter lacks name recognition. Sixty-one percent did not recognize his name, compared with just 6 percent for Ensign.

Regardless of Carter's low name recognition and even lower standing among the electorate, he's significantly better than no candidate -- the situation the Democrats were stuck with before he jumped in the race -- and he has the potential to make a real race of it.

While the indictment of "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to the Vice President and assistant to the President, is a monumental event inside Washington, could it be, as some Democrats have suggested, the tip of the iceberg? It already seems likely that if Libby's case goes to trial, Dick Cheney will be called on to testify under oath; other high ranking administration officials might have to as well. In fact, the AP's Mark Sherman takes a look at today's indictment and notes that a surprising number of cabinet members knew of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity before it was leaked to the press.

At least seven Bush administration officials outside the CIA knew Valerie Plame was a CIA employee before the disclosure of her name in a column by Robert Novak in July 2003, according to the indictment Friday of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

In no case other than Libby's does the indictment claim that one of the government employees provided the name to reporters. And the indictment does not identify anyone other than Libby.

But some are easy to determine. Of course, the "vice president of the United States" is Dick Cheney, for whom Libby worked as chief of staff. Cheney told Libby that Plame worked at the CIA, information that Libby understood came from the agency, the indictment said.

And the person referred to as "then White House press secretary" is Ari Fleischer. Libby discussed Plame's employment at the CIA with Fleischer, noting "that such information was not widely known," the indictment said.

Doing some stellar reporting, Sherman finds that others in the know included Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman, assistant to the vice president for public affairs Catherine Martin, and possibly Karl Rove.

The probe, as we noted earlier, will coninue with a new grand jury, though special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has said that "the bulk of this investigation is over." Nevertheless, should the case indeed move to trial and the media devotes to it even a fraction of the time given to the trial of Scott Peterson or Michael Jackson, it's unclear how the White House would be able to successfully govern.

With one of the highest ranking White House staffers under indictment, Congressional Republicans are sending the White House a clear message: the only way to get back on track is by moving noticeably to the right. CQ Today's Midday Update (a free email service) has the story.

The charges against I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby are another staggering blow to a White House already reeling from the ever-mounting toll of the war in Iraq, sky-high energy prices and the withdrawal of President Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

Sen. Robert F. Bennett, R-Utah, said the CIA leak probe had drained Bush’s political capital and the credibility of top aides. “There’s been a constant drip. This is another one,” Bennett said.

Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., said the case would force Republicans to concentrate on moving issues that can energize their base, such as proposed spending cuts. “It’s like in the old days, when the Indians attacked, the settlers got their wagons gathered round and they got the job done,” Burton said.

Rep. John T. Doolittle, R-Calif., said Bush could make a fresh start “by giving us a good, conservative Supreme Court nominee who has a long track record.”

If the Republicans believe that it's time to cede the middle to the Democrats, so be it. The GOP majority in the House has rested on a coalition of conservatives and blue state moderates; without the latter in the GOP fold, the Democrats might have remained in power in 1994 -- and most certainly will take back the House in 2006.

CBS News has the story.

Fitzgerald's spokesman, Randall Samborn, said the investigation will continue but with a new grand jury. The term of the current grand jury cannot be extended beyond today.

Although not indicted today, Karl Rove still is still under investigation by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who armed with this new greand jury, has significantly more time now to ferret out the truth. The folks at Hotline on Call note the following under the heading "Wonder Who Official 'A' Is..."

From the indictment: "On or about July 10 or July 11, 2003, LIBBY spoke to a senior official in the White House ("Official A") who advised LIBBY of a conversation Official A had earlier that week with columnist Robert Novak in which Wilson's wife was discussed as a CIA employee involved in Wilson's trip. LIBBY was advised by Official A that Novak would be writing a story about Wilson's wife."

UPDATE: We are being facetious. Thanks to those of you who wrote in to suggest "Karl Rove."

On top of Rove's possible involvement, it almost seems quite possible that if this case goes to trial, Vice President Dick Cheney will have to testify under oath. So the AP's John Solomon and Pete Yost are certainly right in writing, "Any trial would dig into the secret deliberations of Bush and his team as they built the case for war against Iraq."

The AP's team of John Solomon and Pete Yost have the story.

Vice presidential adviser I. Lewis "Scooter' Libby Jr. was indicted Friday on charges of obstruction of justice, making a false statement and perjury in the CIA leak case.

Karl Rove, President Bush's closest adviser, escaped indictment Friday but remained under investigation, his legal status a looming political problem for the White House.

[...]

The five-count indictment accuses Libby of lying about how and when he learned about CIA official Plame's identity in 2003 and then told reporters about it. The information was classified.

The indictment is available here on the special prosecutor's website; the special prosecutor also offers this press release on the story. CNN also does its own reporting and writes the following.

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, resigned on Friday after federal grand jury indicted him on charges related to the CIA leak investigation.

Rasmussen Reports finds that President Bush's waning support from within his own party is having some seriously deleterious effects on his overall approval ratings.

For the third time in a week, President Bush's Job Approval Rating has fallen to a new low. Just 40% of American adults now approve of the way George W. Bush is performing his role as President.

Overall, 59% of Americans Disapprove of the President's performance including 44% strongly disapprove. Less than half that number, 21%, Strongly Approve. Early in the year, the number who Strongly Approved roughly equaled the number who Strongly Disapproved.

Before this past week, the President's Approval Rating has never dipped below 43% in a Rasmussen Reports poll. It fell to 42% for the first time last Friday, to 41% for the first time this past Wednesday, and to 40% for the first time today.

Among Republicans, the President's Approval Rating has fallen to 71%, the lowest level ever recorded. For most of his time in office, the President's Approval Rating among Republicans has been in the high-80s.

Seventy-one percent approval among Republicans? Even if this number is slightly low -- as I suspect it may be -- it's quite shocking to see so few members of President Bush's own party approving of his actions. Does he make a sharp right turn to bring them back into the fold? And if so, what does this do to his already meager approval rating among independents?

Chris Cillizza, The Washington Post's political blogger, today offers the blogosphere his picks for the top ten Senate races to watch in 2006 (and 2005). They are, in order:

1. Ohio -- OPEN, Republican Bob Taft
   
2. New York -- OPEN, Republican George Pataki
   
3. Iowa -- OPEN, Democrat Tom Vilsack
   
4. Virginia -- OPEN, Democrat Mark Warner
   
5. Maryland -- Republican Bob Ehrlich
   
6. New Jersey -- OPEN, Democrat Dick Codey
   
7. Massachusetts -- Republican Mitt Romney
   
8. Michigan -- Democrat Jennifer Granholm
   
9. California -- Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger
   
10. Oklahoma -- Democrat Brad Henry

I would take exception to a couple placements; New York, where Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is creaming all competition, should be ahead of Ohio, and Massachusetts, where in all likelihood Romney won't run for reelection, should be higher. But otherwise, it's a solid list. Click the above link for more information on each of the contests.

Per NBC News.

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is expected to release some documents in the case around noon ET and then hold a press conference at the Justice Department at 2 p.m. ET.

The documents should be online within the hour; when they are, we'll provide the link.

"I hope voters are smart enough to know that I'm not involved in the Valerie Plame affair; I didn't leak the name of a covert agent."

-- Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota's Republican Governor, acknowledging that the Republican Party nationally is "on the ropes" and could be a drag on his reelection bid next year.

Link.

As if indictments and being forced to admit to failing to follow House ethics standards weren't enough, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay today received word that subpoenas were issued for more evidence surrounding his alleged money laundering scheme. The AP's April Castro reports.

A Texas prosecutor asked Thursday for all e-mail sent and received in 2002 by three indicted associates of U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay as part of an investigation into an alleged campaign finance scheme.

The latest subpoenas issued by District Attorney Ronnie Earle request correspondence to and from e-mail addresses belonging to John Colyandro, Jim Ellis and Warren RoBold. He did not ask DeLay to provide e-mails.

[...]

Among the information being requested, the subpoenas seek records from DeLay's political committee in Texas, including billing information and subscriber and recipient details.

The prosecutor also repeated a request for telephone records from DeLay's daughter, Danielle DeLay Ferro, a political consultant who did work for DeLay's Texas committee.

These guys just can't catch a break...

The New York Times' duo of David Johnston and Richard W. Stevenson report that a conclusion -- or at least part of a conclusion -- is nearing in the Plame probe.

Lawyers in the C.I.A. leak case said Thursday that they expected I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, to be indicted on Friday, charged with making false statements to the grand jury.

Karl Rove, President Bush's senior adviser and deputy chief of staff, will not be charged on Friday, but will remain under investigation, people briefed officially about the case said. As a result, they said, the special counsel in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, was likely to extend the term of the federal grand jury beyond its scheduled expiration on Friday.

According to Richard B. Schmitt of the Los Angeles Times, the timing of Fitzgerald's announcement will be "midday." Whenever and however the story breaks, we'll have frequent updates and analysis, so make sure to check in to Basie! tomorrow.

In the latest survey from the Public Policy Institute of California, Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's slate of ballot initiatives is far from succeeding. Gary Delsohn has the story for The Sacramento Bee.

Schwarzenegger's top priority, the budget-regulating Proposition 76, is getting trounced by a margin of 62 percent to 30 percent, according to the poll.

Schwarzenegger's initiative making it harder for teachers to get tenure job protection, Proposition 74, is statistically even. The poll of likely voters, which has a possible error rate of three percentage points, shows the measure behind 46 to 48.

Proposition 77, which would change the way legislative and congressional districts are drawn, is also losing badly. Likely voters oppose it by a margin of 50 to 36.

And Proposition 75, which would require public employee labor unions to get their members' written consent before spending dues on political campaigns, is a dead heat at 46 to 46.

[...]

Another measure which the governor has endorsed, Proposition 73 to require a minor's parent or guardian to be notified before she can receive an abortion, is drawing opposition from 48 percent, with 42 percent in favor, the poll showed.

November 8, 2005 will be the day that will either make or break Schwarzenegger's governorship. If his ballot measures can prevail in the voting booths, Schwarzenegger might be able reclaim the mandate he has lost over the past two years; if, however, his initiatives go down, as the current polling indicates, Schwarzenegger's chances of reelection will move from bad to worse. The stakes could not be higher for either side, so keep an eye out for a barrage of advertisements over the next week and a half.

The mid-census redistricting effort in Texas engineered by Tom DeLay is the reason why Republicans extended their majority in the House last fall. But now the Legal Times' Nathan Carlile reports that the Supreme Court is considering taking up a legal challenge to the new districts.

The Supreme Court will consider Travis County, Texas, et al. v. Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, et al., along with several other related Texas redistricting cases, during its private conference on Friday. They are among dozens of cases the Court will review at the conference to determine if they should be added to the Court's docket for argument.

In October 2004 the Supreme Court remanded the Texas redistricting case back to a three-judge federal panel, which then rejected, for a second time, legal challenges to the new Texas congressional map, passed in 2003 and followed in the 2004 election.

The appellants, which include elected officials and special interest groups, are asking the Court to throw out the new map in favor of one drawn shortly after the 2000 census. They also want the Court to explicitly define what constitutes partisan gerrymandering -- an act the Court last year deemed unconstitutional. If the Court agrees to hear the case, opening arguments could begin next spring.

In other DeLay news today, the AP's Wendy Benjaminson reports that DeLay has tried a new tactic in his public relations efforts.

Rep. Tom DeLay, under indictment on campaign finance violations, railed against Democrats in a letter Thursday, accusing them of engaging in "the politics of personal destruction."

The letter, sent to constituents and contributors, connected his case with investigations into possible misconduct by White House adviser Karl Rove and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

If DeLay wants to connect the dots of all of the Republican scandals, Democrats should not spend one second trying to stop him.

Tim Noe, the major Ohio Republican donor and coin dealer who lost $10-$12 million worth of the state's rare coin collection, today was indicted on money laundering charges potentially related to the 2004 presidential election. The Toledo Blade has the story.

A federal grand jury has indicted Tom Noe, the former Maumee coin dealer suspected of laundering money into President Bush’s reelection campaign, Mr. Noe’s attorney told The Blade today.

Jon Richardson said he was called this afternoon and informed of the indictment. The details of the indictment are being withheld until a press conference at 4:30 p.m.

[...]

Local law-enforcement sources said investigators are looking at contributions made by people from the Toledo area to the Bush campaign at the fund-raiser, at which the campaign raised $1.4 million.

Mr. Noe, who was tagged a Bush “Pioneer” for helping to raise at least $100,000 for Bush campaign, sponsored a table at the event, and invited a number of people to attend.

An individual can give only $2,000 to a presidential candidate in the primary and another $2,000 in the general election, according to federal law. Throughout the 2004 campaign — primary and general — Mr. Noe contributed $2,000. His contribution came in August, 2003.

It's quite possible that Noe was simply an overzealous activist who, on his own, ran afoul of federal laws regulating campaign contributions. But one must keep in mind the developments of the past few months.

• In August, Ohio's Republican Governor Bob Taft was convicted on four misdemeanor counts for failure to disclose connections to lobbyists.
  
• Earlier this month, the White House's top procurement official, David Safavian, was indicted in connection to the investigation of GOP superlobbyist Jack Abramoff (who himself was arrested for fraud in August).
  
• Last month, then-House Majority Leader was indicted for criminal conspiracy and was later indicted for money laundering. DeLay also faces questions about his relationship with Abramoff.
  
• Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is currently being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission in regard to his sale of stocks in a company run by his brother.
  
• And of course, there is the Plame investigation.

So can President Bush and the national Republican Party extricate themselves from this scandal? Probably. But it just adds to the already lingering questions about their ability to run government cleanly and fairly.

Can the Ohio GOP survive this scandal? That's the $10-$12 million question. At the least, these scandals will provide Ohio's Democrats with their first real chance to win a statewide election in the state in a very long time, but the potential remains for a clean sweep next fall.

As Bloomberg's Greg Stohr notes, President Bush is back to square one on the nominating process and must once again balance appeasing the social conservatives in his party against avoiding a "nuclear" war with Senate Democrats.

U.S. President George W. Bush is back where he started in seeking a successor to retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor: trying to balance competing calls for a woman or racial minority, a staunch conservative and someone who won't provoke a showdown with Democrats.

The controversy surrounding Harriet Miers, whose nomination the White House withdrew this morning, adds a new complication to the president's decision. Bush almost certainly will want to placate his conservative allies whose opposition to Miers, the White House counsel, was instrumental in sinking her nomination.

Yet if he chooses a nominee with a clear record against abortion rights and affirmative action, he risks a fierce battle with politically empowered Senate Democrats. Democrats have left open the possibility of a filibuster, a parliamentary maneuver used to block a vote.

``He's not in a position of strength,'' said Susan Low Bloch, a law professor at Georgetown University in Washington. ``If he were in a stronger position in other areas, he would not worry about the filibuster.''

And the lack of clout is not limited to the nation as a whole. As Jonathan Allen reports for The Hill, a growing number of conservative Republican Senators feel emboldened to buck the President at will.

"I think she made the right decision, and I appreciate it," said Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), a possible 2008 presidential candidate who had been scheduled to meet with Miers this morning.

[...]

"It really shows the maturity of the party," said Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), another potential presidential candidate. "This is not a one-person party."

"I'm not just going to roll over," said Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.).

All of this simply serves to underscore the points made recently by John Danforth, a former Republican Senator, Ambassador to the United Nations and Episcopal priest, who said,

"I think that the Republican Party fairly recently has been taken over by the Christian conservatives, by the Christian right [...] I don't think that this is a permanent condition but I think this has happened, and that it's divisive for the country."

So in which direction will President Bush move with his next nomination: confrontation, to appease the base, or comity, to appease the middle. This is another one that's a bit above my pay grade...

It increasingly appears that the reason why Harriet Miers' nomination was withdrawn today was because of the underwhelming support -- and indeed opposition -- of conservative Republican Senators. CQ Today's Midday Update (a free email service) has the story.

President Bush made the decision to withdraw the Supreme Court nomination of White House counsel Harriet Miers, but the impetus came from Senate Republican leaders.

According to a GOP leadership aide, the entire leadership team held a dinner meeting at the Capitol last evening. On the menu: an “honest discussion about where the nomination stands.”

Afterwards, Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., relayed their assessment to White House chief of staff Andrew Card. “I gave an accurate reflection of where the nomination stood,” he told reporters today.

GOP aides say he conveyed a fairly grim assessment of Miers’ chances if the White House did not turn over documents relating to her legal advice to the president.

Marc Ambinder reports along similar lines for Hotline on Call.

The tipping point came within the past several days. GOP Senators privately communicated to WH CoS Andy Card that unless they had access to hard evidence that Miers was conversant in constitutional issues, there was no way she would be confirmed. Her performance in private meetings was weak, at best, these senators told Card. Throughout the day yesterday, says a senior Senate aide, there were "conversations throughout the day at the staff level." Late yesterday, Senate Maj. Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) called Card and told him in no uncertain terms that Miers would probably not be confirmed. An aide: "He provided frank assessment of situation in the Senate. [The] lay of land on committee." After that call, according to White House sources, Bush and Card met privately with Miers, and they decided jointly that preserving WH privilege on documents was too important a principle to risk. Miers officially informed Bush at 8:30 pm ET. As late as 8 p.m., one White House aide said the WH counsel's office was rushing to finish a revision to the Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire. (It arrived after 11:00 pm ET). Word began to spread through conservative Washington last night. The White House office of political affairs notified allies at about 8:30 a.m ET this morning but swore them to secrecy until the White House released the President's statement.

In a story hitting the wire in the past few minutes, CNN is reporting that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is turning his attention directly on Karl Rove, specifically on the Deputy Chief of Staff's role in the possible coverup.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is focusing his investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity on whether White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove committed perjury, two lawyers involved in the case told CNN.

Perhaps the withdrawal won't push the Plame investigation out of the news so soon after all...

The Hotline on Call blog reports on the possible timing of President Bush's new nomination to the Supreme Court.

And a White House official tells the Hotline that Bush will not nominate anyone today but would not rule out tomorrow.

What else is not happening today but might happen tomorrow? Per the AP's Pete Yost.

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald huddled with his legal team Thursday as two key White House aides awaited their fate in the CIA leak probe.

A spokesman for the prosecutor said there would be no public announcements Thursday. The term of the grand jury that could bring indictments expires Friday.

Potential criminal charges against White House officials and a new Supreme Court nominee in the same day...

Would President Bush withdraw Harriet Miers simply to aid his effort to lessen the fallout from the possible indictment of administration officials in relation to the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity? No. But might he have timed the announcement of withdrawal and the subsequent announcement of a replacement strategically? That one's beyond my pay grade.

[Update 9:05 AM Pacific]: Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post's political blog The Fix reports along similar lines.

That coincidence of timing led Republican operatives to wonder whether White House insiders know something about the outcome of the leak investigation. "It wouldn't surprise me if the White House timed this to overshadow -- or at least compete with -- indictments today," said one high-level Republican consultant, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the delicateness of the matter. "Even if the indictments come tomorrow, it's still smart timing because it divides the chattering class, weekend talk show focus between the open Supreme Court seat and the indictments, rather than spending all Sunday morning on the indictments."

Tom Raum, analyzing today's developments for the AP, comes to the following conclusion: George W. Bush is a weakened President.

Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' sudden withdrawal underscores the strength of the social conservatives who form President Bush's political base and the weakness of a president buffeted by one political misfortune after another.

Her withdrawal came after restive conservatives mounted a stinging campaign against her credentials.

Josh Marshall hits a similar note this morning.

Meanwhile, Democrats will see the obvious: that President Bush is a very weak chief executive right now. This is the second time in something like a week that a nomination has been withdrawn. Yesterday, the president folded on a policy initiative for the right -- the Davis-Bacon suspension. Democrats can see that the president's initiatives really can be beaten. In fact, they're going down pretty routinely now. And more Republicans up for reelection next year will think twice before walking off another plank for the president.

More on the relationship between the timing of this announcement and the impending conclusion to the Plame investigation to come...

The AP's Terence Hunt has the story.

Under withering attack from conservatives, President Bush abandoned his push to put loyalist Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court and promised a quick replacement Thursday. Democrats accused him of bowing to the "radical right wing of the Republican Party."

The White House said Miers had withdrawn because of senators' demands to see internal documents related to her role as counsel to the president. But politics played a larger role: Bush's conservative backers had doubts about her ideological purity, and Democrats had little incentive to help the nominee or the embattled GOP president.

Interesting that Miers has been withdrawn during the 48-hour period during which time indictments of White House officials are expected...

[Update 8:39 AM Pacific]: USA Today notes that Miers is the 35th unsuccessful Supreme Court nominee.

The Constitution stipulates that the President nominates judges and the Senate provides advise and consent. But naturally, many outside actors can have a voice in the process, even members of the House of Representatives. And as Elana Schor reports for The Hill, a number of Republican Congressmen are beginnning to voice doubt and concern about George W. Bush's selection of Harriet Miers.

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), head of the conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC), said, “I have reserved judgment, but I was disappointed that the president did not choose a known conservative jurist to fill the associate-justice position.”

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), the first lawmaker to oppose Miers, was less reserved. He claimed that her intellect is not up to the task of serving on the high court and reiterated his fierce opposition yesterday.

Tancredo said that while House members may not be able to vote on Miers, their reputation for being closer to the parties’ bases than the Senate means the lower chamber has a duty to give input.

“I’d hope they’d listen” in the Senate, Tancredo said, “but they won’t.”

With so many balls to juggle these days, it's a wonder how the White House is able to stay afloat these days.

Former Missouri Senator John Danforth, a moderate Republican who for a time served as the current President's ambassador to the United Nations, today spoke out against the direction of his party. Daniel Connolly has the story for the AP.

The influence of evangelical Christians in the Republican Party hurts the organization and divides the country, former U.S. Sen. John Danforth said during a visit to the Bill Clinton School of Public Service on Wednesday.

Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri and an Episcopal priest, met with students during a seminar and held a luncheon talk at the graduate school.

"I think that the Republican Party fairly recently has been taken over by the Christian conservatives, by the Christian right," he said in an interview after his talks. "I don't think that this is a permanent condition but I think this has happened, and that it's divisive for the country."

He also said the evangelical Christian influence would be bad for the party in the long run.

Although Danforth is certainly in the center of American politics on a number of topics, "moral issues" like abortion aren't some of them.

Danforth, considered a conservative on social issues, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1976 and served three terms. In his final term he played a key role in defending Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas against claims of sexual harassment during bitter confirmation hearings. Thomas eventually was confirmed.

For all of the talk of the Democrats' need to reach out to religious voters, where's the talk of the Republican Party's need to not to welcome non-Evangelicals? Danforth raises some great questions with this speech, and it would be very beneficial to this country if the dialogue he is trying to open actually comes to fruition.

Josh Gerstein of The New York Sun scores a big scoop regarding the Plame investigation.

The federal prosecutor investigating the alleged involvement of White House officials in the leak of a CIA operative's identity spent most of the lunch hour today meeting with the chief judge of the federal district court in the nation's capital, Judge Thomas Hogan.

As reporters massed outside an elevator lobby leading to the grand jury rooms, the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, apparently slipped out a back exit to conduct the noontime meeting with Judge Hogan.

Editor & Publisher's Greg Mitchell has more on the meaning of the story.

CNN reports that prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald met with the judge handling the case for 45 minutes today, after seemingly exiting the area. Speculaton: The two either discussed how to handle the pendlng indictments and/or Fitzgerald formally requested that another grand jury be put in motion when this one expires on Friday.

And for what it's worth, Richard Sale, a former UPI reporter (though it's unclear if this is pre- or post-Moon ownership of the news service), pipes in with this item.

An hour ago I was contacted by a U.S. government official close to the Fitzgerald case. This person told me that there WILL be indictments announced later this afternoon, and the Special Prosecutor will hold a press conference tomorrow.

More to come on the story as it breaks...

The Associated Press is running two stories on the wire this afternoon indicating that the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee is planning on grilling Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers on a range of different issues. First, Liz Austin's report out of Texas.

A Senate panel may seek testimony from a former Texas lottery official who claimed Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers let a company keep its contract because one of its lobbyists helped President Bush get into the National Guard in the 1960s.

Miers, whose confirmation hearings begin Nov. 7, chaired the three-person Texas Lottery commission from 1995 to 2000.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, which will hold hearings on Miers' nomination, recently asked GTECH Corp., the Texas lottery's main contractor, whether it would object to testimony from Lawrence Littwin about allegations in his 1998 lawsuit against the company, GTECH spokesman Bob Vincent said Wednesday.

Littwin, the lottery's second executive director, was fired in 1997 after just four months on the job. He sued GTECH, saying it took "illegal, unethical and coercive steps" to get him fired because he was asking too many questions about the company's contract with the state.

He claimed the Rhode Island-based company kept its contract in exchange for former Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes' silence about how he had helped Bush get into the National Guard to avoid service in Vietnam. Barnes was a lobbyist for GTECH from 1991 until 1997.

Jesse J. Holland also reports that the judiciary panel will not only be looking at Miers' record in service to George W. Bush but also her views on complex judicial issues.

The senator who will preside at Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' confirmation hearings told her Wednesday to expect to be questioned about White House's policies on the war on terror and whether she can be independent of President Bush if confirmed.

Senate Judiciary chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., told Miers to expect questions on the area of executive authority "especially in light of your close relationship with the president and the key positions you have held in the White House."

For example, Specter said in a letter of preview questions for Miers, "What assurances can you give the Senate and the American people that you will be independent, if confirmed, and not give President Bush any special deference on any matter involving him which might come before the court?"

What ever happened to the belief among Republicans that it is unacceptable for Senators to probe judicial nominees on issues that could come before the court?

Already under indictment on charges of money laundering and conspiracy, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay today admitted to failing to follow House ethics standards, as the AP's Larry Margasak reports.

Rep. Tom DeLay failed to comply with House requirements that he disclose all contributions to a defense fund that pays his legal bills, the Texas Republican acknowledged to House officials.

He wrote officials that $20,850 contributed in 2000 and 2001 was not reported anywhere. Another $17,300 was included in the defense fund's quarterly report but not in DeLay's 2000 annual financial disclosure report — a separate requirement. Other donations were understated as totaling $2,800, when the figure should have been $4,450.

It was during that period that DeLay was the subject of several House ethics investigations.

When this type of infraction occurs, it is usually meaningless; in most of these cases, the Representative's staff simply forgot to fill out all of the right forms. But when these problems show up over and over again, as they have with DeLay, serious questions must be raised about the Representative's fitness to serve. And if recent polling is any indicator, DeLay's constitutents are doing just that.

Pete Yost and John Solomon have the story for the AP.

The federal grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA officer's identity met for three hours Wednesday with Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald and his deputies, adjourning for the day without announcing any action.

Fitzgerald is known to be putting the finishing touches on a two-year criminal probe that has ensnared President Bush's top political adviser Karl Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff I. Lewis Libby.

There was no word on whether Fitzgerald planned to make any announcement or when the grand jury planned to meet again.

[Update 11:18 AM Pacific]: Jason Leopold and John Byrne report for The Raw Story (note the source) that Fitzgerald asked the grand jury "to indict Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby and Bush’s Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice." Further, they write, "Rove declined to plead guilty to the reduced charge, the sources said, indicating through his attorney Robert Luskin that he intended to fight the charges."

[Update 11:26 AM Pacific]: From CNN:

Several experts told CNN it is possible the grand jury on Wednesday still could consider the question of indictments and if it votes to return one or more, the indictments could remain under seal and made public later.

These experts also said it is possible the grand jury could consider indictments later this week, or that no charges will be brought.

It is also possible Fitzgerald will let this grand jury term end and take his case to a new panel.

More to come on the story as it breaks...

According to the latest data from Rasmussen Reports, President Bush just can't get any traction these days -- particularly among members of his own party.

Forty-one percent (41%) of American adults approve of the way George W. Bush is performing his role as President. This is the lowest level recorded ever recorded by Rasmussen Reports.

Among Republicans, the President's Approval Rating has fallen to 73%, matching the lowest level ever recorded.

For most of his time in office, the President's Approval Rating among Republicans has been in the high-80s.

Overall, 59% of Americans Disapprove, including 44% who strongly disapprove. That is the highest percentage to Strongly Disapprove of his job performance.

With both voters and elites within the Republican Party starting to withhold support for the President and his policies, George W. Bush better get his act together before he truly becomes a three-year lame duck.

President Bush has enough worries these days without a having to combat defections from within his own ranks over the nomination of Harriet Miers. But as David D. Kirkpatrick reports for The New York Times, a growing number of Republican Senators are unhappy with the White House's selection.

The drumbeat of doubt from Republican senators over the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet E. Miers grew louder Tuesday as several lawmakers, including a pivotal conservative on the Judiciary Committee, joined those expressing concerns about her selection.

Emerging from a weekly luncheon of Republican senators in which they discussed the nomination, several lawmakers suggested that as Ms. Miers continued her visits on Capitol Hill, she was not winning over Republican lawmakers.

"I am uneasy about where we are," said Senator Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican on the Judiciary Committee who had so far expressed only support for the president's choice. "Some conservative people are concerned. That is pretty obvious."

[...]

Coming less than two weeks before confirmation hearings, the public questioning by Republican senators may be an ominous sign. Of the 10 Republicans on the 18-member Judiciary Committee, Mr. Sessions joins two others who have publicly raised concerns: Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas has questioned her legal views on abortion rights, and the committee chairman, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, has said Ms. Miers could benefit from a "crash course in constitutional law."

Several Republican aides, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said two other Republican committee members, Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, had privately raised questions about her judicial philosophy. Both declined to comment on their views of her.

The spin among Senate Republicans seems to be going in the wrong direction. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a member of the Judiciary Committee, said, "To support the withdrawal would be a rebuke of the president, not her." This sets up the situation that if Repubulicans eventually do back withdrawal, it might be viewed as an act of rebellion rather than an indication of Miers' unfitness to serve on the Court.

Whatever the case may be, it's not clear that President Bush still has the clout to bully consevatives in his party. And if one or more conservatives on the Judiciary Committee do indeed defect, Miers will have a very tough time reaching the Supreme Court.

[Update 9:38 AM Pacific]: According to the AP's Jesse J. Holland, conservative Senator David Vitter (R-LA), echoes Sessions, Brownback and others.

The White House should provide written evidence that Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers has a conservative judicial philosophy instead of asking senators to rely her statements or the word of her friends, conservative Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said Wednesday.

"What I am suggesting is that I'd love to see more written material that predates the nomination," said Vitter after an early morning meeting with Miers, the White House counsel.

When asked how important getting that material was to his vote, he said "It's extremely important. I don't know how to put it in a numbers term, but it's extremely important."

"We always made sure the President was hearing all the possibilities. That's one of the differences between the first Bush Administration and this Bush Administration."

-- John Sununu, chief of staff to George H.W. Bush.

Link.

The Washington Post's Jonathan Weisman sums up Republican efforts to decrease the deficit quite effectively in this lede sentence.

Republicans began targeting key programs for budget cuts yesterday, from student loans and health care to food stamps and foster care.

More tax cuts for the extremely wealthy while slashing spending on food stamps, foster care and student loans... are these the priorities shared by most Americans?

Two articles in tomorrow's papers -- one in the Los Angeles Times, one in The New York Times -- indicate that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has renewed his focus on Karl Rove. To begin with, the LA Times' trio of Tom Hamburger, Richard B. Schmitt and Peter Wallsten.

As his investigation nears a conclusion, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has returned his attention to White House adviser Karl Rove, interviewing a Rove colleague with detailed questions about contacts that President Bush's close aide had with reporters in the days leading up to the outing of a covert CIA officer.

[...]

A deputy prosecutor called Rove's colleague this afternoon and interviewed him in depth about statements Rove may have made to reporters about the case, a lawyer familiar with the case said.

"It appeared to me the prosecutor was trying to button up any holes that were remaining," the lawyer said.

Richard W. Stevenson and Anne E. Kornblut report similarly for The New York Times.

With the clock running out on his investigation, the special counsel in the leak case continued to seek information on Tuesday about Karl Rove's discussions with reporters in the days before a C.I.A. officer's identity was made public, lawyers and others involved in the investigation said.

Three days before the grand jury in the case expires and with the White House in a state of high anxiety, the special counsel, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, appeared still to be trying to determine whether Mr. Rove had been fully forthcoming about his contacts with Matthew Cooper of Time magazine and Robert D. Novak, the syndicated columnist, in July 2003, they said.

And if these two stories aren't enough for you, Mary Ann Akers reports for Roll Call's rumor column "Heard on the Hill" the following item.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was spotted Tuesday at the law offices of Patton Boggs paying a visit to Robert Luskin, the eccentric (for Washington, D.C.) lawyer who represents Karl Rove.

In previous years, Oregon's Republican Senator Gordon Smith has been a reliable vote against opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve to drilling. But The Hill's Alexander Bolton reports that Smith has changed his mind on the issue in the lead up to a key budget vote.

Recognizing the new political reality, Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), who said he has voted against drilling in the Arctic several times, intends to vote for the reconciliation package and its drilling provision.

Smith said drilling in the reserve “is not the lightning rod it once was.”

“That’s a fact,” he said. “Even in Oregon.”

This is not the first time this year Smith has abandoned his original moderate position in favor of the more conservative views of the Republican leadership. At one point in April, Smith was poised to upend the Republican Budget bill over excessive cuts to Medicaid, but by the end of the month he had given into his party's leadership and pledged to the support the bill. Although he will not be up for reelection for another three years, Oregonians -- who generally support the Democratic Party in federal and statewide elections -- won't likely forget the conservative stances he takes now.

News of possible indictments in the Plame investigation has been floating around the blogosphere, but now a major media outlet -- Financial Times -- confirms the story, with Caroline Daniel reporting.

Indictments in the CIA leak investigation case are expected to be handed down by a grand jury on Wednesday, bringing to a head a criminal inquiry that threatens to disrupt seriously President George W. Bush's second term.

On Tuesday night, news reports, supported by a source close to the lawyers involved in the case, said that target letters to those facing indictment were being issued, with sealed indictments to be filed today and released by the end of the week.

Those in legal jeopardy may include Lewis “Scooter” Libby, vice-president Dick Cheney's chief of staff, and Karl Rove, Mr Bush's chief political strategist.

With this story possibly breaking in the next day or two, make sure to visit Basie! for frequent updates and analysis.

In the latest Gallup poll commissioned by USA Today and CNN, President Bush's approval rating stands at 42 percent, up from 39 percent earlier this month but "within the poll's sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, so it's possible that the public's opinion has not changed at all." Among the other key findings of the survey:

A majority would vote for a Democrat over President Bush if an election were held this year, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll released Tuesday.

In the latest poll, 55 percent of the respondents said that they would vote for the Democratic candidate if Bush were again running for the presidency this year.

Thirty-nine percent of those interviewed said they would vote for Bush in the hypothetical election.

Gallup also finds that on a wide range of topics, the public favors the approach of the Democratic Party to that of the GOP.

On separate issues, a majority of those questioned felt the Democrats could do a better job than Republicans at handling health care (59 percent to 30 percent), Social Security (56 percent to 33 percent), gasoline prices (51 percent to 31 percent) and the economy (50 percent to 38 percent).

Forty-six percent also believed Democrats could do better at handling Iraq, while 40 percent said the GOP would do better.

In a related story, SurveyUSA today released its October numbers on all 100 U.S. Senators. Seven out of the top ten rated Senators are Democrats; seven out of the bottom ten rated Senators are Republican. Oregon Senators Ron Wyden (D) and Gordon Smith (R) are fairly popular, at 61 percent and 55 percent approval, respectively. How does your Senator fare? Click the above link.