Take look at this photo over at FiredUp! of Huey, Dewey and Louie ... er, ex-senator Kit Bond, Senator Roy Blunt and wanna-be senator, Rep. Todd Akin (R-2). FiredUp!'s Shannon implies that Bond and Blunt may have decided to make do with Akin as the best potential candidate the Missouri GOP can hustle up to run against Claire McCaskill next year.
Shannon makes no bones about her assumption that potential Akin challenger, John Brunner, just isn't ready for prime time, and I personally can't see two such cagey movers-and-shakers as Bond and Blunt extending much of a welcome to "loose cannon" Sarah Steelman unless they are forced to do it. This leaves them having to grin-and-bear radical fringe-winger Akin.
On the surface, Christian dominionist Akin seems to be a world apart from two fat-cat Republicans like Bond and Blunt. Of course, the two senate veterans are also realists, and Akin's ability to see socialism in a grain of sand is not really that incompatible with their ultimate goals as servants of the corporatocracy. The ideological extremes have actually proven to be rather useful in that regard as the Koch Brothers' utilization of the über Tea Party group, Americans for Prosperity, demonstrated during the fight over health care reform.
There is another dimension to the formation of this convivial threesome as well. Greg Sargent gets it right when he remarks about last night's GOP Tea Party primary debate that:
... the GOP keeps spinning farther and farther from the general election median voter every week. And, in many cases, reality - do these folks really believe that the biggest economic problem today is runaway inflation? That Americans are desperate to rid themselves of Social Security? That policies enacted by Barack Obama and the Democrats in 2009 (whatever you think of those policies) caused a recession that began in 2007? That "exceptionalism" is the beginning and end of foreign policy? I know, one expects rhetoric that plays to the audience, and I'm sure that most of these positions and the rhetoric that goes with it is carefully polled and focus-grouped (as well it should be). And that's the real story here: The audience has been trained by Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and the rest of that squad - and therefore a careful, cautious, Republican presidential candidate who is perfectly well-versed in the issues, solidly conservative in the tradition of Ronald Reagan, and knows exactly what he or she needs to do to win the Republican nomination is going to sound like a nut half the time.
The lunatic rightward drift of the GOP is just as true at the state level. Old time realists and money men like Bond and Blunt can read the writing on the wall as well as anybody, and have probably just decided that now is the time to take a deep breath, relax, and embrace their totally nutty inner GOP child, and if that means indulging folks like Akin when they throw tantrums about various species of evil-doers and the flaming, big-government socialists out to destroy Western civilization, so be it.
In response to the GOP-led madness in Washington D.C., Steve Benen asks an interesting question:
... where are the "sane Republicans" willing to "stand up to this Hezbollah faction in their midst"? Where are Bob Dole and John Warner? Why can't John Danforth and Colin Powell express their disapproval for what their party is doing? Maybe some of Reagan's old guard, like Ken Duberstein, could speak up? [...]
We're not talking about GOP officials taking a hard line on some random piece of legislation, or nominating some radical for a key public office. We're talking about congressional Republicans who've decided to play a game of chicken with the full faith and credit of the United States - something no American institution has ever done in more than two centuries - and who are fully prepared to trash the constitutional principle next week as part of a hostage strategy gone horribly awry?
Made me think about the silence of Missouri's "respectable" GOP establishment in regard to the Tea Party debt ceiling shenanigans. (N.B. "Respectable" as I use it here means there is some sense that the person is at least minimally rational and occasionally sincere. Consequently the Tea Party representatives are excluded.)
Let's start with Danforth since Benen called him out by name. If you will remember, this is the elder GOP statesman who felt impelled to hold his nose and endorse Tea Party trickster Ed Martin in the last congressional election - so I guess there's probably no point looking for integrity from this particular quarter.
Compared to wheeler-dealers like Martin, his opponent in the 2nd district congressional race, Ann Wagner, seems to have some slight sheen of respectability left. But notice how she has rushed to grovel before one of the main instigators of the madness, Grover Norquist?
Don't even bother to bring up the recently retired Kit Bond. Not only was he in high pander mode before he retired, most of his pronouncements were so sclerotic that it was hard to take them seriously even when one sensed he was trying to do the right thing. He actually proposed using the debt ceiling to secure budget cuts last April. Hope he likes the mess he's helped to create.
Roy Blunt? The guy's sane - and he's on the record for raising the debt ceiling. He's also on record for not raising it unless we get insane cuts at a time when the economy is at risk from just such a retraction of federal spending. So far, when Roy walks a thin line, he's far more apt to stumble down on the side of a Tea Party pander than common sense. The only hope Blunt offers is that he's so in hock to his pet "job creators" that he'll do their bidding in financial matters when push comes to shove.
Who else in Missouri can speak for the traditional GOP establishment? Anyone? What are the odds that any of them have more backbone than the quartet above? Surely there are some Missouri GOPers who put the welfare of the country above the welfare of the party, who will be willing to stand up to the brain-dead morons that the Tea Party sent to Washington?
Today the Senate failed to invoke cloture and advance the DREAM Act by a vote of 55-41. By Senate rules the bill needed 60 votes to move forward for consideration:
Question: On the Cloture Motion (Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Concur in the House Amendment to the Senate Amendment No. 3 to H.R. 5281 )
Vote Number: 278 Vote Date: December 18, 2010, 11:09 AM
Required For Majority: 3/5 Vote Result: Cloture Motion Rejected
Measure Number: H.R. 5281 (Removal Clarification Act of 2010 )
Measure Title: A bill to amend title 28, United States Code, to clarify and improve certain provisions relating to the removal of litigation against Federal officers or agencies to Federal courts, and for other purposes.
Vote Counts: YEAs 55
NAYs 41
Not Voting 4
Bond (R-MO), Nay McCaskill (D-MO), Yea
[emphasis in original]
The DREAM Act would have enabled a path to citizenship and productive service for children who were brought into this country illegally (through no fault of their own) and who have lived here for a number of years.
Senator Claire McCaskill (D) issued a statement on her vote:
The deal to continue dubya era tax cuts managed to get 83 votes today to get past a filibuster. Fancy that. It appears that only republican legacy legislation can easily pass that hurdle in the U.S. Senate.
Question: On the Cloture Motion (Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Concur in the House Amdt. to Senate Amdt. with Amdt. No. 4753 )
Vote Number: 272 Vote Date: December 13, 2010, 03:01 PM
Required For Majority: 3/5 Vote Result: Cloture Motion Agreed to
Measure Number: H.R. 4853 (Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2010, Part III )
Measure Title: A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to extend the funding and expenditure authority of the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, to amend title 49, United States Code, to extend authorizations for the airport improvement program, and for other purposes.
Vote Counts: YEAs 83
NAYs 15
Not Voting 2
Any bets on the republicans counting this as part of the 95% of the time that Claire McCaskill voted with Obama for their 2012 campaign attack ads? Just asking.
Today St. Luis Public radio KWMU broadcast our Missouri senatorial delegation's somewhat muddled thoughts on the President's proposed tax deal.
Claire McCaskill, as usual, says as little as possible as deliberatively as possible:
So, I'm gonna continue to drill down and look at it very carefully, make sure that what we are doing is very stimulative. Frankly, that extra bonus for the multimillionaires, that's not very stimulative. If it were stimulative we would have had a lot of jobs created the last decade and we haven't.
Let's see ... McCaskill's going to have to "drill down" to figure out how stimulative giving a hundred thousand dollar minimum tax break to each American millionaire might be? Somebody should acquaint her with the fact that economists are already on the record that there's little stimulus to be found in that quarter. It's actually common knowledge, which is why the Republican rhetoric is so hilarious and will cost them dearly in the long run. And why isn't she worried abut the effect on the deficit? This is a woman who opposed a program proven to be stimulative, the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program, because it wouldn't be "fiscally prudent."
Kit Bond, on the other hand, sleepwalks it in:
And I expect if this bill goes through it is going to generate the jobs. And I think it is simple economics 101 and I am disappointed that some people don't understand that. No jobs are created by raising taxes.
Glad to know that Kit's got those expectations. Not likely to be realized though; as those of us who actually took economics 101 know, the relationship of tax policy to economic growth is just a little more complex than he realizes. Ample evidence exists that tax cuts don't always create jobs - if they did, the Bush tax cuts would have done so over the ten years they were in force. Instead, after years of lack-luster performance, we are in a employment crisis.
Interesting question: Who are McCaskill and Bond working for? The 55,000 households that would see their tax on income over $250,000 increase? Or those of us who muddle along - including the 280,000 who won't muddle along too much longer without continued unemployment subsidies. How much longer will we put up with pols who would even consider holding the welfare of the majority hostage to the welfare of their wealthy pals.
Later thoughts .... Reading this over, I am not sure that I made it clear that I think the problem is that our Senators are seriously considering a deficit-busting deal that would give away $133 billion in tax breaks to 4.8 million people on the GOP side, as opposed to $214 billion in tax breaks and other provisions to benefit 156 million people on Obama's side. It costs too much for the amount of stimulus it will provide, it's unfair to the working poor, and there are too many risky elements - setting a precedent for raiding Social Security payroll taxes, for one.
An elegant solution: let all the tax cuts expire, come back in 2011 and introduce legislation for a middle class tax cut and let the GOP oppose that if they dare! The only issue that gives me any pause when I consider this suggestion is that of the unemployment benefits extension, but I truly believe that if they were willing to fight, the Democrats could get benefits extended for a lot less cost.
The nomination of Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court was confirmed by the Senate:
Question: On the Nomination (Confirmation Elena Kagan of Massachusetts, to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the U.S.)
Vote Number: 229
Vote Date: August 5, 2010, 03:30 PM
Required For Majority: 1/2
Vote Result: Nomination Confirmed
Nomination Number: PN1768
Nomination Description: Elena Kagan, of Massachusetts, to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Vote Counts: YEAs 63 NAYs 37
As the struggle over Senate energy legislation, the Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act, is getting ready to heat up, the Environmental Defense Action Fund has prepared ads targeting, among others, Missouri's Kit Bond:
However, even if everyone who sees the ad contacts Bond and implores him to support the legislation, I doubt that it would have much effect. Bond has already made it clear that he's glad that he's had his chance to dance, and he's just as willing as ever to pay the Big Oil and King Coal pipers (who have supported him to the tune of $446,000 over his career).
In fact, Bond has already stepped up and taken a leadership role in the Republican fight against clean energy legislation. He and his partner in crime, Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), dusted off and reissued as new last October's widely disputed "report" in which they attempted to present clean energy legislation as a "$3.6 trillion gas tax." Needless to say, this new iteration of the same ole, same ole was just as quickly and easily discredited as it was last fall. A spokesperson for Senator John Kerry responded to Bond's and Hutchison's latest effort to cast clean energy legislation as an "energy tax" with the following comment:
The only thing Senator Bond and Senator Hutchison have to worry about today is if we start taxing bad math and misinformation, because it could cost them billions.
Actually, the American Power Act proposes relief and refund programs that would mitigate the impact of nearly 69 percent of the carbon fees it would impose. Numerous studies show that the legislation would cost relatively little - for instance, according to EPA modeling results, it would add between $80 to $150 a year to the average household budget. As Senator Lieberman put it:
"There'll be some people who will want to demagogue that politically, but that's less than $1 a day," Lieberman told reporters. "Is the American household willing to pay less than $1 so we don't have to buy oil from foreign countries, so we can create millions of new jobs, so we can clean up our environment? I think the answer is going to be yes."
Ah yes, demagoguery. And, of course, Senator Lieberman ought to remember that "yes" has little currency with members of the Party of No - who, oddly enough, used to really like the idea of cap-and-trade - back when they thought Democrats would never go for it.
In response to the news that Kit Bond was apparently unable to stay awake during an intelligence briefing yesterday - after while later claiming on MSNBC that Attorney General Eric Holder had kept important intelligence information from his committee - I'm proposing that he adopt this endearing little ditty as his signature theme music :
Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur ; Happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr, purr, purr
Any doubts left that Bond's decision to retire was a wise one?
What do Claire McCaskill and Kit Bond have in common? They were both part of the 61 member majority in the Senate that voted down the SAFE Banking Act (S.AMDT. 3733). This proposed amendment to Senator Dodd's financial regulatory legislation (S. 3217) was intended to guarantee that there would be no more too-big-to-fail bank catastrophes in our future - a good thing, right?
... the largest banks three years to transform themselves into leaner, more sustainable institutions - while maximizing shareholder value and without sacrificing any of the economies of scale. Importantly, a hard cap will also prevent new financial services firms from growing too large in the future.
Michael Tomasky notes that this amendment "was considered by liberal activists and economists to be the element that would add real teeth" to Dodd's reform package.
I will be very interested to learn just why McCaskill joined with 27 Senate Democrats and all but three Republicans to defeat this legislation. Wasn't it Claire "Carry Nation" McCaskill who postured for the cameras just a week or so ago, waving a metaphorical hatchet at the malefactors who head up the too-big-to-fail Goldman Sachs? If the financiers' bad behavior gets her so riled up, why did she vote against making it just that much more difficult for these greedy clowns and the rest of their wall street pals to make our economy go crash again? How can she scold the big bankers and financiers and then turn around and help them to a great big victory?
Maybe McCaskill had good reasons - but I want to hear something other than hemming, hawing and the usual temporizing before I am convinced. Until then, I am afraid that Tomasky might be correct about what the behavior of timid centrists like McCaskill means:
This vote should demonstrate to liberals that the conditions for rapid change just don't exist in this country and that part of the task is to create those conditions
Yesterday, I wrote about Claire McCaskill's war on the secret holds that Senate Republicans have placed on President Obama's nominees for judicial and government positions - just one of the ways these petty thugs are trying to hinder the administration from achieving its goals. True to her promise, McCaskill, joined by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), returned to the floor of the Senate last night to ask for unanimous consent to vote on 75 more stalled nominations.
The upshot? Egregious Republican stalling. Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz) came to the floor and objected to the request for votes on behalf of unnamed, presumably Republican colleagues.
Since a motion for unanimous consent to vote on a nominee requires the Senator who placed the hold to identify him or herself, and send a letter justifying the hold to be published in the Congressional Record, Senator McCaskill promised that:
... she would be watching the Congressional Record and contacting both parties' leadership offices to track which Members come forward to reveal their holds in accordance with the 2007 rule. McCaskill said she hopes to either reveal the sources of anonymous holds - or end them all together.
"Hopefully by the end of the week we'll learn who it is in the Senate that doesn't want them to be nominated, who it is that doesn't want them to be confirmed," she said.
Her goal:
... to pressure Senators "to speak out about their objections so that we can answer them and move forward and get these people to work."
How effective this will be remains to be seen - what we have now may well be a "let the games begin" scenario. According to Ryan Grim and Ben Craw of The Huffington Post, the Republicans who placed the holds:
...may be able to wiggle out of going public by dropping their holds and picking them right back up, or teaming up with other Republicans and swapping the holds back and forth. It's never been tried before, so where this is heading is anybody's guess.
At least in Senator McCaskill we've got a dogged participant in the game representing our interests. And perhaps we can exert a little pressure too - phone calls to Senator Bond to express our displeasure with this type of obstructionism perhaps? Some letters to the editors of Missouri papers recognizing Senator McCaskill's efforts to keep government running, and giving a thumbs down to the Republican performance? Just asking ...
So how can Missourians celebrate Earth Day tomorrow in a way that will have real impact? The answer is easy if you live in or near St. Louis or Kansas City: join Repower America and other "clean energy patriots" at a rally outside Claire McCaskill's offices in those two cities (find information about St. Louis rally here; Kansas City information is here). Alternatively, Repower America will also host call-in events in Kansas City and St. Louis (click on the cities to volunteer or get information).
At the call-in events, you can volunteer to do outreach to other Missourians and enlist them to, in turn, contact Senators McCaskill and Bond, and tell them how much they want them to support strong clean energy legislation. If you just want to contact one of our senators to deliver the message yourself, you can phone this Repower America number and ask to be patched through to either senator: 1-877-9-REPOWER (9-737-6937).
Why are these events important? We can take it as a given that Senator Bond is unlikely to change his stripes and support meaningful clean energy legislation any time soon, but it is still important for him to hear that many of his constituents do want congress to limit carbon emissions and invest in clean-energy jobs for Missouri.
As for Senator McCaskill, we have recently seen that she may be beginning to get the message that clean energy can mean growth and jobs for Missouri, as well as being essential to continued American competitiveness since other countries are rapidly jumping on the band-wagon. Nevertheless, she needs to know that we support her shifting position, and that we will have her back if she follows through and does what's right - which includes measures to restrict carbon emissions.
In case you yourself want more reasons about why clean energy is important to Missourians specifically - apart from the general "save the world" issues involved with climate change - just take a look at any of these three fact sheet prepared by Repower America, "Clean Energy Potential in Missouri," "Clean Energy Jobs in Missouri," and "How Clean Energy Will Help Missouri's Farmers." And then, if you are able, make it on over to one of the Repower America rallies tomorrow or volunteer for one of the phone-in events right away. Happy Earth Day!
"...we're going to put in place new rules so that big banks and financial institutions will pay for the bad decisions they make - not taxpayers. Simply put, this means no more taxpayer bailouts...." - President Barack Obama
Senator Kit Bond (r - lame duck) and all of the republicans in the Senate signed on [pdf] to block that financial regulatory reform (you know, the lack thereof which allowed a wealthy few to almost collapse our economy by virtue of their high risk and other behaviors).
...Just the other day, in fact, the Leader of the Senate Republicans and the Chair of the Republican Senate campaign committee met with two dozen top Wall Street executives to talk about how to block progress on this issue...
...[republican Senate Leader] McConnell's Wall Street meeting, in other words, is quickly becoming one of the central aspects of the debate. Perhaps the Minority Leader would be willing to shed some additional light on what transpired? Who, exactly, did he meet with? How much money did he collect? What did the Wall Street elites demand, specifically, and what did he promise?
I wonder what the reaction might be if Senate Dems raised the prospect of some kind of investigation into the meeting, complete with subpoenas for attendees....
President Obama called out the republican obstructionists in today's address:
"....Now, unsurprisingly, these reforms have not exactly been welcomed by the people who profit from the status quo - as well their allies in Washington. This is probably why the special interests have spent a lot of time and money lobbying to kill or weaken the bill. Just the other day, in fact, the Leader of the Senate Republicans and the Chair of the Republican Senate campaign committee met with two dozen top Wall Street executives to talk about how to block progress on this issue.
Lo and behold, when he returned to Washington, the Senate Republican Leader came out against the common-sense reforms we've proposed. In doing so, he made the cynical and deceptive assertion that reform would somehow enable future bailouts - when he knows that it would do just the opposite. Every day we don't act, the same system that led to bailouts remains in place - with the exact same loopholes and the exact same liabilities. And if we don't change what led to the crisis, we'll doom ourselves to repeat it. That's the truth. Opposing reform will leave taxpayers on the hook if a crisis like this ever happens again...."
Two recent posts over at FiredUp! strike me as telling. One draws our attention to Kit Bond's assertion that the actions of our Democratic controlled congress to craft and pass health care insurance reform is comparable to suicide:
I think it may be more accurate to say they [i.e., Democrats] put red bandanas on their head, took a drink of sake, and went out on what I believe to be a Kamikaze mission.
The other posting describes Bond's and Roy Blunt's willingness to put their names to a hasty, Republican-sponsored measure designed to repeal the health care reform package lock-stock-and barrel. In view of today's USAToday/Gallup poll that shows that Americans favor the reform bill 49% to 40% against, they and their buddies may have just blundered onto the Kamikaze plane by mistake - because that margin can only get better as their erstwhile followers begin to notice that the legislation did not bring about the Armageddon these fearless leaders have been frantically predicting.
...Senator Kit Bond: The Constitution says nothing of the subject of filibuster and it says nothing of the power of a minority to defeat the president's judicial nomination....
....It is the product of a rule of the Senate, passed many years after the ratification of the Constitution. This rule does not derive from the authority of the Constitution....
"...This rule does not derive from the authority of the Constitution...."
...Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two thirds, expel a member....
At Thursday's White House press briefing Robert Gibbs took a question about Senator Kit Bond's (r) continuing temper tantrum over briefings concerning the underwear bomber. The White House is not curling up in the corner and saying, "Please. Don't. Hurt. Me." on this one:
....Q Senator Bond accused the White House of using JohnmBrennan for political purposes, saying that he was being -- doing the role, your role. This economic report --
MR. GIBBS: Let me just address that. Let's understand this: John Brennan has been working in counterterrorism for more than 25 years -- right? First as a CIA agent hired by President George W. Bush to work at the CIA, and then to stand up the National Counterterrorism Center. Okay? We asked him to stay on. I don't have the slightest idea what political party John Brennan is a member of. I've never had a political conversation with John. I know this: John is there each and every day working in his office to try to do everything he can to keep the American people safe.
And I would suggest, whether it's to Senator Bond or others on Capitol Hill, that these are decisions best left to people that have an understanding of counterterrorism, experience in counterterrorism and law enforcement, rather than to politicians on Capitol Hill.
Q But his specific accusation was that he was being used in a way that a press secretary is supposed to -- I mean, that he was enunciating Obama's policy.
MR. GIBBS: I think Kit Bond didn't -- I don't think Kit Bond liked to hear what he already knew, which was he'd been told that Abdulmutallab was in FBI custody after what happened on Christmas Day.
Now, I'll let you, Jonathan, ask Kit Bond whether he understands the protocols of how the FBI deals with suspects enough to understand that at that point it would have been obvious he would have been read his Miranda rights. I don't know whether Kit Bond was confused or whether he just doesn't want to admit the facts....
The Eric Cartman of lame duck republican senators is continuing to petulantly pitch a fit and is escalating his rhetoric. The White House is pushing back:
As you may have heard, Senator Kit Bond is calling for Obama counter-terror chief John Brennan to step down, largely because Brennan has taken the lead in pushing back against GOP efforts to paint Obama as weak on terror.
The White House is now dismissing Bond's efforts as "pathetic," and pointing to Brennan's lifetime of professional intelligence experience as proof that Bond is putting politics over our national security. Asked for comment on Bond's broadside, White House spokesman Nick Shapiro emails over a brief and dismissive comment:
"Through his pathetic attack on a counter-terrorism professional like John Brennan who has spent his lifetime protecting this country under multiple Administrations, Senator Bond sinks to new depths in his efforts to put politics over our national security."
The conventions of political journalism for some reason discourage doing this, but it's worth pointing out that the White House is right....
I wonder if there's a podium around that he can pound on while he's at it.
...Earlier in 2009, Johnson was unanimously approved by members of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. But a single senator, Republican Kit Bond from Missouri, has used his symbolic 'privilege' to hold up consideration of Johnson's nomination since last summer...
WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senator Kit Bond, R-Missouri, spoke on the floor of the Senate on Thursday, saying the General Services Administration has "apparently been unresponsive to the ongoing health concerns of their employees and tenants at the Bannister Federal Complex...."
...Bond made the comments while defending his efforts to block the appointment of the GSA's top executive...
Yeah, the republicans woke him up when they assumed their 41-59 majority in the Senate. Only they forgot to feed him any coherent talking points.
Do you suppose maybe if the General Services Administration would have actually had an administrator to head the agency, you know, and administer it instead of being subject to the petulant temper tantrums and whims of a particular senator that the GSA might have been more "apparently responsive" to the problems at the GSA's Bannister complex in Kansas City? Just asking.
...Q One last -- one question on security -- one question, it's important. Senator Bond wrote a letter to the President today about a conversation that we had here in the briefing room yesterday and Bill gave a couple of answers -- many answers, really -- on there was no political nature to the White House explanation of the dealing with Abdulmutallab. What Bond says in his letter is that the senators on the Intelligence Committee were briefed specifically earlier this week that the disclosure of Abdulmutallab's cooperation should not be revealed because it was -- he says in this letter -- "Doing so would threaten ongoing efforts to stop operations the intelligence community thought were possibly happening against the United States." He writes in this letter, "Distortion of the congressional notification process suggests that other considerations are taking precedence over keeping timely and sensitive information away from our enemies" -- I know a charge you would fundamentally reject, but I want to get your response to that.
MR. GIBBS: Well, first and foremost, I don't want to speak for Senator Bond, who, if the timeline you outlined -- a Monday briefing for a Tuesday hearing -- why he would in his Tuesday hearing use the statement that the subject refused to cooperate after he was Mirandized.
So I don't want to speak for the senator who didn't certainly use any of that information to correct what he said in public in a hearing that happens a day after.
I would say this, having read the letter. During a hearing on Tuesday, information was released that clearly showed that Mr. Abdulmutallab was indeed talking again to interrogators. For those of you that participated in the background briefing, you know that was not something that was timed purposefully.
Q Were they not supposed to reveal it?
MR. GIBBS: It was not timed purposefully. Soon after that -- soon after that, media reported -- we felt it important to contextualize, because many of you were e-mailing us, what this testimony meant.
I would say, again, having read the letter, no briefing is done here or anywhere in this administration where classified information is used in a place where it shouldn't be. And I would suggest that somebody that alleges that when they know it doesn't happen owe people an apology.
Any briefing that's done here in order to ensure that the information that's in the public is correct is done in conjunction with many agencies and done so so that information that is classified and shouldn't be released isn't released. And in this case obviously it was not.
Q So Bond owes you an apology? Bond owes the President an apology?
MR. GIBBS: No, I don't think Bond is alleging that the President was in the briefing.
Q On the -- on the -- two questions.
MR. GIBBS: Hold on, hold on -- just hold on, just -- this is an important question, Lester.
Q Oh, sure, okay.
MR. GIBBS: The notion that somehow the White House, in conjunction with agencies involved in this interrogation, gave out classified information -- yes, I think an apology on that is owed because it's not true. And I think anybody that was involved in knowing in the Senate Intelligence Committee what was briefed and what was reported would know that that wasn't violated.
Again, Major, I don't want to speak for Senator Bond in why, if he was briefed on Monday, why on Tuesday, why does he say that Abdulmutallab -- the result of his refusal to cooperate after he was Mirandized? Why does Senator Bond continue to knowingly not have information curb what he's saying, or is this a bunch of politics?
Q So he owes an apology to whom?
MR. GIBBS: I think he owes an apology to the professionals in the law enforcement community and those that work in this building, not for Democrats and Republicans, but who work each and every day to keep the American people safe and would never, ever, ever knowingly release -- or unknowingly release -- classified information that could endanger an operation or an interrogation.
Again, I think that the reason that charge is made is only to play politics. I actually don't believe that that -- that he thinks that's a serious allegation. I think that is -- I think if you look at the letter, it's clearly -- this is about politics....
Given his position as the ranking minority member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, it was probably too much to expect that Kit Bond would refrain from joining the chorus of what David Brooks, in an unexpectedly excellent column, called the "rabid denunciation and cynicism" that has characterized the right's response to the Christmas bomber incident. On the topic of the bomber, Omar Abulmutallab, Bond holds, along with the rest of his party, that treating terrorist crimes in the criminal justice system is to privilege terrorists in some inappropriate way:
This is not a case for a series of criminal trials, ... . We should have held him as an enemy combatant and tried him in a military commission.
Earlier, on the issue of the Gitmo detainees, he had this to say:
The Obama Justice Department has prioritized political correctness over protecting the citizens of this country.
Apart from seizing an opportunity to ring the proverbial Pavlovian bell with phrases like "political correctness" applied to Obama and terrorism, one wonders why would-be tough guy politicians like Bond fail to remember the equal determination of one of their close allies, Margaret Thatcher, to deny IRA men "special status". This status would have accorded IRA members a prisoner of war status not too dissimilar to that accorded to those held in the military system of detention and justice that Bond and his pals prefer.
Located in the heart of Westport --
The Original Kansas City
Californo's: Elegant dining in a delightful atmosphere,
located in the heart of Westport
So how can Missourians celebrate Earth Day tomorrow in a way that will have real impact? The answer is easy if you live in or near St. Louis or Kansas City: join 
Given his position as the ranking minority member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, it was probably too much to expect that Kit Bond would refrain from joining the chorus of what David Brooks, in an unexpectedly 
