Any abrogation of that deal should be dealt with swiftly and harshly.

what does this mean, how can congress or the senate deal with the president harshly except to impeach?

A bad day playing Attorney General is better than a good day being his dad.

A sad thing to say isn’t it? It shows Gonzo and The W share the same fear of not being as good as their fathers.

OldCoastie @ 159

Flynt’s a good guess, but I’m thinking it is someone much larger than that… but I don’t know who – I like your chess analogy.

Murdoch? Can’t imagine why unless he just likes to control things.

Hmmmmmm, or maybe Richard Mellon Scaife. Here’s an article.
The man behind the mask
http://www.salon.com/news/1998/04/07news.html

OOOOOOhhhh…Paula Zahn:

Ex-CNN anchor Paula Zahn’s steamy diary, which allegedly details her affair with a tycoon, was discovered by her husband and daughter, sources say.
Paula Zahn’s words of love are coming back to haunt her now that the newswoman’s estranged husband has his hands on a diary that lays bare her secret affair with another tycoon. “It’s Paula’s love book,” a source tells us. “It documents her tryst” with married ContiGroup CEO Paul Fribourg.

I like the part where he kicked her out of the house and she moved into a $40,000 a month apartment on the middle East Side.

No wonder we get the news we get. Most people who watch her don’t make $40,000 a year!

Citizen RockPaperSizzors and the Firepup Patriots:

“So, who’s Bush’s opponent?”

I been EPU’d twice on this but I’ll give ya the short version of the Norske analysis :
There has been a huge battle goin’ on in the rulin’ oligarchy between the western cowboy anti-Clinton Bush faction and the establishment Yankee pro-Clinton bankin’ faction. The Yankee faction whose axis is the Murdoch-Rockefeller institutions has won and has told the Bushes to purge the radicals, shut the fuck up and go quietly into that goodnight. The quid pro quo is “impeachment is off the table”.

The Yankees control the Democratic congressional leadership and want to clear the decks for Mrs. Clinton to ascend to the Whitehouse and bring respectability back to the fascist decision-makers.

If Mrs. Clinton is elected President look for Steny Hoyer as Speaker of the House, Rahm Emmanuel as floor leader, and Joe L**uderman to take Durbin’s place in the Senate. (Mrs. Clinton will completely rehabilitate Joementum and he’ll have his choice of committee chairs.

This is a great mornin’ for progressives to open a window for a fresh wind of democracy to blow into every living room in the country…but only if we grunts out here in the trenches force the Democratic leadership to defy the Yankee oligarchy.

KEEP THE FAITH AND REMEMBER YOU DON’T NEGOTIATE WITH FASCISTS!!

@ 15

How can he do a recess if the resignation is effective 9/17 and congress returns next week?

He can do a recess appointment anytime from now on…

No, unless I’m misunderstanding snark…Bush can only do a recess appointment (one that does not require Congressional consent) until Congress returns from recess. Since the resignation doesn’t occur until 9/17 – Bush can’t fill a still occupied office. Otherwise all he would have to do is require that his appointees submit a letter of resignation upon entering office, and these could be held until convenient.

UPDATED:
Libby
Wolfowitz
Bolton
Rumsfeld
Card
Miers
Bartlett
Rove
Gonzales
Schlozman
Bork

Bob Murray

(i have no idea what this list is about but it looked like a list of assholes so I added Bob)

Harry Reid has a deal with Bush — no recess appointments. Any abrogation of that deal should be dealt with swiftly and harshly.

But what leverage do the Dems have? It seems to me that the right-wing spin machine is already preparing the ground for a recess appointment; the leaks, and the on-again off-again mentions in Drudge and the Politico, certainly make it sound like it’s being talked about. If Bush goes ahead, Pat Leahy can strongly disapprove. What else can he do? Try to censure Bush? The Republicans would just filibuster it.

I’ll even predict what justification they will give for breaking the deal: they’ll claim that the deal is an unconstitutional constraint on the president’s power to make recess appointments!

The other thing is that they might not do it right away; they might float unacceptable names, wait for Democrats to respond with skepticism, and then use this as a justification.

It seems to me that the only real way to prevent a recess appointment is for the Senate to stay in session, at least pro forma, until Bush submits a nominee.