I do believe that boy's got a future! Unfortunately.

I wonder who wrote that statement for him...

"Congress isn't even a branch of the gov't anymore...." bah-ha! Sad but true. God help us.

Wow, thanks for the kind words (you too, Rusty Austin). Yes, I do write Congresspeople (and not just to pester; I praise them, too, when they rarely do something that makes me happy, or when I feel like giving them support and/or information that I think would help them).

"... if a court ultimately determines that Congress' need for the information outweighs the president's assertion of executive privilege, I would welcome the opportunity to answer your questions on the U.S. attorneys matter."

Boy, what a concession! It's especially generous as he knows that his boss has forbidden the relevant US Attorney to prosecute any contempt citations related to this matter. Although as Mr. Jennings did at least have the decency to show up, I suspect that he'll get a pass on any possible contempt citation.

But ya' know a court order trumps any welcoming feeling that J. Scott may, or may not, have.

I'd like to echo an earlier compliment paid you. And while I very much respect your privacy, could you provide a hint about your background? Your analysis is always illuminating, amusingly wry, well-observed, straightforward, composed and thoughtful.

I hope, too, that you're regularly contacting your senators/congresspeople and offering them your particular "take". Anytime they assert that we're too out-of-the-loop, outside-the-Beltway to get it - or when, out of ignorance and abject fear, they try to dismiss the blogosphere as adolescent malcontents - they should be reminded that people like you are watching, remembering, voting, leading.

This is the blowback that politicos, of all stripes, should really be worried about.

“Sadly, our efforts to follow the evidence where it leads has been met with Nixonian stonewalling,” said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is the panel’s chairman.

My only question about this no-surprise-here testimony is: so which bible-thumping brain-draining college did this twenty-something pipsqueak go to?

Ordinarily, you’d probably be right. The Regent University (as in “founded by Pat Robertson”) website used to boast that 150 of their graduates have served in the George W. Bush administration. It’s also the Alma Mater of Monica Goodling of U.S. Attorney firing scandal fame.

However, J. Scott Jennings seems to have a decent (if short) record—he actually went to a real school (University of Louisville), which is also the alma mater of the man he helped re-elect in 2002: Sen. Mitch McConnell.

But, really, the best part of Jennings' non-testimony was his reference to Greek mythology: “I hope that you can appreciate the difficulty of my situation. It makes Odysseus' voyage between Scylla and Charybdis seem like a pleasure cruise.” http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070802/ap_on_go_co/prosecutors_jennings;_ylt=AnmzXw7iejks7zW0yfeXRuqs0NUE

It is this that makes him a tool.

Slackie, I am forwarding to Leahy and Specter (although I am guessing they ahve staffers reading Salon every day...)

I admit that I've been enjoying every moment of seeing these young, zealous right-wingers (Jennings and Goodling) being served up by the administration as an appetizer to Congressional investigators. Granted, many of the diners are toothless, and are only gumming their prey to death, but occasionally a Leahy or a Schumer will be able to get a juicy bite.

One wonders if any of these twerps has backed off the Kool Aid enough to understand how they're getting royally screwed - how they're being cynically used as fodder by their superiors. If they were actually intelligent, instead of merely clever and ideologically blind, they might see their predicament as part of a much larger picture wherein the right wing always sees its underlings as expendable. And unfortunately, all of us who aren't millionaires are their underlings. (See the Iraq War for the best example of this.)

So I doubt this will be a learning moment for any of them; Bush, after all, speaks directly to God. For me, though, it sure reinforces my understanding of the right-wing mind.

My only question about this no-surprise-here testimony is:

so which bible-thumping brain-draining college did this twenty-something pipsqueak go to? And who in the Bush family is his Godfather?

Am I the only one who is sick of experienceless neophytes spewing self-important and high-handed crap?

It is NOT respectful to refuse to answer any of the questions of Congress, just because he showed up. Boy....we've really lowered the bar, haven't we?

If I beat my head against the desk enough, can I pass out and wake up in an Obama administration?

It might not be the one I want to hear but it's at least a respectful answer. Is this guy an admin lackey or someone who doesn't want to get involved until the rhinoceroses around him finish fighting (where a little mouse gets squished) and decide the issues, I don't know. Maybe he really is caught between a rock and a hard place.

But at least he showed up and said, "Can't do that right now." What Harriet Miers & Bolten did was totally different. If I was subpoenaed and I told the court up yours, I don't think I would be dealt with as gently as these two were.

B.M.N.

What has this young man have to worry about? I'd be a lot more worried about what the White House will do to me and my career than Congress. Shit, Congress isn't even a branch of government any more; it's where people go to get on Meet the Press, right?

I listened to some of the hearing, about as much as I could stand; Jennings invoked that again and again and again, with Arlen Specter talking at length about how distracting this must be for poor Jennings and the poor White House counsels. Poor babies, being inconvenienced by this, but at least even lamewad Leahy growled that it was far more distracting and frustrating for them than it was for Jennings, and urged that Jennings read "Catch-22."

How odd that there seems to be such a clear impeachment opportunity at a time when it is less likely to be considered than ever.

I'm reminded of James Madison's warning against factions in Federalist No. 10 -- although I think he underestimated the peril a country could face from a minority faction, which the GOP represents. The Anti-Federalists were more fundamentally correct about the dangers of factions than Madison was, I think, or more realistic in understanding that a republic of great size was likelier to be doomed by factionalism than a smaller republic.

The GOP is a minority faction that has hijacked the nation. We've got judges who are partial to their ideological underpinnings and subservient to the "Unitary Executive," a Chief Executive who will not faithfully uphold and execute the law, a Vice President who has become his own branch of government, and Congresspeople who continue to be more loyal to their faction than to the country at large.

Everything the various GOP players in question, whether Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rice, DeLay, Roberts, Scalia, Gonzales, the late Rehnquist, Thomas, Alito, Hatch, Specter, Cannon, Forbes, Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, etc., etc., all the way down the food chain to people like Jennings (who, to have reached the White House by age 29 must have been one superlative bootlicker) -- all of them clearly place party loyalty and factional obedience above service to the country.

Their efforts to break the checks and balances system and unify Party and State are abominable, unconstitutional, and reprehensible. I wonder if the Democrats are even capable of fighting something like this, let alone willing.

Madison contended that the cure was worse than the disease with factions, so one had to deal with the effects of them, although, again, he was occupied with majority factions. The GOP is a minority faction. Justice John Paul Stevens said it well when he said "Parties ranked high on the list of evils that the Constitution was designed to check."

Can there be any party more partisan than the GOP? Any party more willing to abrogate the Constitution for their own ends? No way. They've outdone themselves.