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Last week, I wrote an article asking whether President Bush would withdraw the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court in response to Senator Arlen Specter’s letter telling Bush that any confirmation hearings for Miers would have to include specific questioning about Bush Administration activities at Guantanamo Bay.

Just a few hours later, the Bush Administration did indeed withdraw the nomination of Harriet Miers.

That withdrawal is nice enough on its own, but it’s not the end of the matter. Now, we need to do the follow up work. We need to ask: What was the Bush Administration trying to cover up in Guantanamo Bay by preventing Harriet Miers from testifying before the United States Senate about the prison? It’s got to be something pretty skanky for the Bush Administration to sack a Supreme Court nomination over. It’s time for the Senate, and the House of Representatives, to hold in-depth and independent investigations into the war crimes being committed at Guantanamo Bay. Our liberty depends upon the application of the rule of law to every American – even the most powerful American of them all.

Two more American soldiers are now to be tried for abusing prisoners in Afghanistan. These soldiers apparently beat Afghan prisoners repeatedly on the chest, shoulders and stomach.

Oh, these soldiers are bad apples, to be sure, but let’s keep in mind that they were just following the Bush Torture Doctrine, as identified in the legal memos of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales: It’s okay to torture prisoners as much as you want, so long as you don’t cause permanent medical damage.

That’s my scary thought for this Halloween.

For five years, the Bush White House has been committing crime after crime, with seeming impunity. They thought they were above the law, but they forgot one thing. This is a democracy, and in a democracy, the law applies to everybody, even the White House.

Today, the long arm of the law finally caught up with one of the crooks in the White House. I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby has been indicted on five counts:

1. One count of obstruction of justice.

2. Two counts of perjury.

3. Two counts of making false statements.

This whole thing stems, of course, from the arrogance of the White House. They thought the function of American intelligence agencies was to generate justifications for whatever the White House wanted to do, to generate evidence for whatever the White House wanted to say. They were wrong. The CIA sent Ambassador Wilson to discover the truth, and when the truth wasn’t what the White House wanted, and Wilson wouldn’t shut up and tow the line, they took their revenge by blowing the cover of a CIA agent.

Libby resigned after the indictments were handed down. But as late as yesterday, as the White House knew full well he was about to be formally indicted in relation to the betrayal of confidential information, Libby was in a security briefing–presumably receiving yet more of the same kind of secrets he had been so willing to betray America by revealing.

Of course, none of this was too surprising. Libby had admitted to leaking the CIA agent’s identity to the press, and over the last few weeks his lies to the FBI and the grand jury had become public. But even after all of that, the White House never disciplined him, never withdrew his security clearance. Even on the eve of his indictment, he had access to government secrets.

Not exactly the behavior of innocent people who suddenly discover the betrayer of an American secret agent in their midst, now is it?

This is only the beginning. The investigation is ongoing, and there’s more to come.

News flash:

White House lawyer Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination for a seat on the Supreme Court. What are your thoughts about what’s next?

I’m betting on the nomination of Alberto Gonzales. Bush needs a crony on the Supreme Court to ensure that he’ll have a favorable vote when his indictment or impeachment reaches the courts.

In our writings here at Imprison Bush, we’ve detailed a frightening number of illegal activities by President Bush and Bush Administration officials. From that perspective, we regard George W. Bush as a dangerous puppet of the right wing of the Republican Party.

However, if there’s one thing that we’ve learned from the Harriet Miers confirmation fiasco, it’s that George W. Bush has opened up the halls of power to a group of right wing fringe groups that are so extreme in their zeal for theocratic authoritarianism in the United States that they believe that George W. Bush has been too liberal as President. It sounds crazy, but consider:

George W. Bush has nominated Harriet Miers to a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court. Harriet Miers has given public speeches in which she promises right wing organizations to do everything in her power to overturn Roe v. Wade. For ordinary Americans, that kind of speech puts Harriet Miers clearly in the camp of the right wing.

But what about the new right wing elite organizations that have gained power in Washington under George W. Bush and the Republican Congress? What do they think of Harriet Miers giving such a speech? They think that it’s too liberal, that it doesn’t support the radical right wing agenda enough!

Groups like Concerned Women of America, a right wing fundamentalist Christian women’s organization, says that Harriet Miers is not enough of a right winger to satisfy them. Beverly LaHaye, the founder of CWA, says of Harriet Miers, “We wanted to back the president, and sought evidence to support this nomination, but we find this Supreme Court nominee unqualified and her record troubling. However, we look forward to a nomination that we can wholeheartedly endorse.”

Now, what kind of nomination to the Supreme Court could Beverly LaHaye and the CWA wholeheartedly endorse? Well, consider who Beverly LaHaye is. She’s the wife of Tim LaHaye, the guy who wrote End Times novel Left Behind. Yes, the LaHayes sincerely believe that Jesus is coming, and he’s going to end up chewing all the nonbelievers who won’t follow the fundamentalist Christian path into little nibbly bits. The LaHayes want to Bush to put one of their True Believers onto the bench. Consider that: A Supreme Court Justice who believes that the world is about to end so that the Messiah can rule over us as all the cosmic king of kings. Only such a judge would be acceptable to Beverly LaHaye and the right wing CWA.

But then, what about the LaHayes? Are they part of the true, pure right wing? No! They’re too liberal! Other right wing fundamentalist Christians claim that Tim and Beverly LaHaye are part of the liberal conspiracy too, secretly working through the Masons and the Reverend Moon to serve the Prince of Darkness. I swear I’m not making this up. I found allegations like this pretty quickly on two right wing evangelical web sites called Watch Unto Prayer and The Beardsley Ministry. The Beardsley Ministry people complained because in the Left Behind books, Tim LaHaye writes about a few friends and family members of Christians who are able to be converted to Christianity and saved after the End Times have begun. Apparently, the Beardsley Ministry people believe that it’s just too damn liberal not to have every single non-fundamentalist Christian condemned to eternal torment on the spot when Jesus returns to Earth. Nope, for them, the LaHayes are just a couple of devil-worshipping liberals.

It goes on and on and on. For every right winger who condemns other right wingers for not being true enough to the right wing agenda, there is yet another right winger who says that those other right wingers are themselves not far enough to the right.

The Christian Right is like a set of those Russian nested dolls – every time you open one up, there’s another, smaller one inside, making even more extreme demands for right wing orthodoxy. Once you get into the Republican Party, you start sliding down a slippery slope, at the bottom of which are a group of raving lunatics who believe that anyone who doesn’t favor putting gays and atheists into concentration camps is a liberal. The scary thing is that these are the people who are setting the agenda for the Republican Party. They’re the ones who say that Harriet Miers is not far enough to the right to satisfy them. They’re the ones who are dictating the policies of the government of the United States of America.

Considering that, we should not be at all surprised that the rule of law within the Republican federal government has grown so weak.

I can’t say that I agree with a lot of the policies that he supports, but I do have to say this for Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter: He isn’t afraid of putting pressure on politicians in his own political party – not even the President of the United States.

Senator Specter’s smart enough to know that the Bush Administration’s game of war-inspired intimidation is over. Now that Bush can’t bully people into silence with a rendition of God Bless America, even Republicans like Specter are beginning to ask questions about what laws Bush has been breaking in the name of a war on terror.

Specifically, Arlen Specter has sent a letter to Harriet Miers and the Bush Administration informing them that he intends to ask Miers tough questions about the Bush Administration’s policy of keeping people prisoner in the military base at Guantnamo Bay without giving them the right to legal representation, a fair trial, or even protections under the Geneva Conventions.

Here’s the message that Senator Specter is subtly trying to send to President Bush: If Specter, a Republican Senator, is going to ask Miers about her role in the Guantanamo Bay war crimes, then just imagine what kinds of questions the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are going to ask.

So, in this game of political chess, the next move is President Bush’s. Either he withdraws the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, or some very dirty aspects of the Bush Administration’s violation of domestic American and international war crimes laws may be broadcast on national television and radio networks across America.

Of course, Bush could always instruct Harriet Miers to pull the same kind of rotten tactic that John Roberts used for his nomination – and not answer a single question of substance.

Will Bush withdraw Harriet Miers, or will he risk public attention to documents that could lead to his impeachment? Wait and see… maybe Bush won’t have Karl Rove around much longer to give him advice on this one.

Despite Warden’s prediction that Cheney might be whisked off to an “undisclosed location” again, and recent accusations placing him right at the heart of the betrayal of a CIA agent, the man is doggedly pursuing his work.

According to today’s AP, he’s been leaning on Republican Senator John McCain to soften up McCain’s anti-torture bill.

Granted, I don’t always agree with McCain. But his anti-torture bill is a straightforward stand for American morality and honor. It’s worthy of respect, and ought to be passed. The Senate approved it overwhelmingly, and it looks like the bill could end up on Bush’s desk with enough votes to override a veto. That’s exactly the situation Cheney is trying to defuse by gutting the bill and slipping in provisions that would permit torture in places like Guantanamo.

Back when Cheney had better things to do, McCain was on the receiving end of “non-orthodox methods of interrogation,” or “creating the conditions for successful questioning,” or “coercive methods of intelligence extraction,” or whatever other cute little euphemism you want to use for the word torture–from the North Vietnamese.

I can only imagine how much it must pain McCain that standing against the very inhumanity he knows all too well brings him into direct conflict with his own president, and his own political party.

Stay the course, McCain. Don’t change a word. Your anti-torture bill is the right thing to do. And doing the right thing ought to be what politics is all about.

Earlier this morning, Norm wrote about the need for the New York Times to come clean about its role in the White House’s conspiracy to feed misinformation to the American people and the Congress about supposed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The time when the Times must come clean is indeed close at hand.

The same time is arriving for the Bush White House. The entire Bush White House. The leak to the press of Valerie Plame’s identity as an undercover CIA has now been traced back to Vice President Dick Cheney himself. It seems that Lewis Libby (I refuse to call a middle-aged conspirator working in the White House “Scooter”) lied when he told the grand jury that he first learned of Valerie Plame’s line of work from journalists. There is evidence that Dick Cheney himself told Lewis Libby of Valerie Plame’s identity.

A Republican apologist might claim that such sharing of information was innocent. If so, why did Lewis Libby lie under oath about it? If so, why did Dick Cheney refuse to testify under oath at the grand jury?

A defender of the President might concede that Lewis Libby committed a crime, and might even acknowledge that Dick Cheney committed a crime. However, that defender might claim that George W. Bush and Karl Rove knew nothing about it. If that’s the case, then why were Karl Rove’s own leaks offered at the same time as Libby’s? Why, then, did George W. Bush only agree to answer questions for the grand jury investigation if he was not put under oath and could have Dick Cheney in the room with him?

I think back about 20 years now to a similar stage in the Iran Contra criminal investigation of the Reagan Administration. I remember how William Casey, the director of the CIA, was to be brought in to testify under oath about what he knew. I remember how, conveniently for Ronald Reagan, William Casey had a massive stroke and died the night before he was to testify.

Surely, the time has now come for Bush and Cheney to testify under oath, separately, about what they knew about the leak of Valerie Plame’s identity, and what they knew about the scanty evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

If the Bush Administration is playing by the same script as the Reagan Administration, it is now almost time for Dick Cheney to suffer a massive heart attack and be whisked to a secure, undisclosed location.