Late Night Potpourri

Steve Soto asks "Why Is Rummy Interested In Hillary's Financial Records?" Steve quotes the story in The New York Post detailing U.S. Joint Forces Command Deputy Legislative Director Cordell Francis digging through the financial records of both Hillary and Bill Clinton. Exactly what Francis was searching for, and who told him to do it, remains a mystery. Joint Forces Command spokesman Navy Capt. Hal Pittman said he was unaware of Francis' probing and would have to investigate the matter before commenting. He did not call the newspaper back to explain. --- Republicans just gotta be thugs. Charles Kuffner reports on the veritable assault on a Nick Lampson press conference, orchestrated by DeLay campaign manager Chris Homan. Juanita at brazosriver has several photos of the event, and text of Homan's email soliciting Republican activists to "give Lampson a parting shot that wrecks his press conference." --- Charles links to this post by Ankle Biting Pundits, which says: "… former House Majority Leader’s retirement announcement was planned well in advance – even in advance of the primary. … DeLay deliberately waited until after the primary had run its course to drop out of the race for Congress. The reason being: so that party higher-ups could decide who the GOP nominee would be, not the Republican primary voters. You see, now that the GOP nominee slot will be vacant, Texas Republican honchos can handpick the new and improved nominee – in the proverbial smoky backroom, no doubt." This tracks with the report in Time Magazine that "Republican officials will then be able to name another Republican candidate to face Democrat Nick Lampson." --- Crooks and Liars has video of citizen Harry Taylor saying to Bush, "in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency, by the Senate, and … And I would hope -- I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration, and I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself…" --- WaPo this morning has an account of the Leaker in Chief. "The White House did not challenge the prosecutor's account of Bush's and Cheney's role in orchestrating the effort to discredit Wilson yesterday." … "Bush has been a major critic of leaks of classified information, and his aides have repeatedly said they want to "get to the bottom" of who leaked the name of Wilson's wife, covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, to the media, which touched off Fitzgerald's investigation. But in the past 33 months the White House has never disclosed Bush's apparent involvement in the deliberate disclosure of information meant to undermine Wilson." … "Fitzgerald has not charged anyone with wrongdoing in the initial leak of Plame's name. In the new filing, he did not allege that Bush authorized that disclosure, and he said Bush was "unaware of the role" that Libby, then Cheney's chief of staff, played in discussing her name with a number of reporters." … "Unlike the statement exonerating Bush, no statement is made in the filing about whether Cheney played a role in the leak of Plame's name." --- The Ny Times reports Bush, GOP Approval Ratings Hit New Lows "Just 36 percent of the public approves of Bush's job performance, his lowest-ever rating in AP-Ipsos polling."