On Friday's Hardball, Chris Matthews interviewed his daughter, Caroline, as one of the student members of the group Concerned Youth of America, and just didn't bother mentioning the familial relationship. Apparently his daughter had asked not to be identified as such and, rather than interview another member of the group and thus preserve his journalistic integrity (heh), Matthews went right ahead anyways.

It's such a small-beer breach of what passes for journalistic ethics nowadays as to go almost un-noticed, although in the halcyon days of journalism it would probably have gotten him fired or at least earned the censure of his peers. It simply doesn't compare, though, with the likes of Andrea Mitchell reporting on the bank bailout plan - and blaming Obama for its failure - while married to Alan Greenspan and not making full disclosure of that fact before every report.

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John McCain has claimed that he believes "there is a special place in hell" for Tucker Eskew and the others who were behind the push-poll that implanted the idea in S.C. voters' minds in 2000 that he had fathered an illegitimate black child, but that sure didn't stop him from hiring Eskew to help prepare Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Jake Tapper: McCain Hires GOP Operative Who Helped Smear Him in South Carolina in 2000

Former officials of Sen. John McCain's 2000 campaign expressed shock and disbelief Monday to learn than the GOP presidential nominee had hired South Carolina political consultant Tucker Eskew.

Eskew, along with Warren Tompkins and Neal Rhodes, were key members of then-Gov. George W. Bush's South Carolina team during the 2000 primaries. McCain and his team long held Bush, Tompkins, Rhodes and Eskew responsible for the various smears against McCain and his family in the Palmetto state during that contentious contest. [...]

Asked if the McCain campaign would have a comment about hiring one of the South Carolina strategists the senator and his 2000 campaign team once held responsible for smears against him, McCain 2008 spokesman Brian Rogers emailed, "No."

This shouldn't come as much of a surprise after McCain hired Rove's protegé two months ago and began running the negative campaign he pledged not to. There's apparently no depth of depravity that McCain won't stoop to and no issue he won't flip-flop on in an attempt to win this election.

Oh noes! Fournier gets Malkinized!

So let me get this straight, an unapologetic racist who openly tittered about creating fake credentials to cause chaos at the Democratic Convention in Denver thinks that mean little progressive bloggers aren't playing fair with Fournier?  What a WATB.

Doesn't that then mean that he thinks that Malkin's tactics are wrong? Let's remind him of that next time she pulls it, shall we?

Matthew Engel at the UK's Financial Times thinks so:

The protest by the US team that cost Churandy Martina of the Netherlands Antilles his silver medal in the 200 metres was seen by some, perhaps unfairly, as bullying of a small nation. There was also the bizarre election scandalette in the poll among competitors for athlete-representatives to the International Olympic Committee. The US tried to ensure victory for its candidate, Julie Foudy, by offering team members a $50 (€34, £27) shopping voucher if they voted.

The consolation for Americans is that they believe they are triumphant. The medals table is unofficial and, indeed, frowned on by the Olympic Charter, which insists the games are “between athletes . . . and not between countries”. Nonetheless, its format is well established: the number of golds decides the placings, with minor medals used to settle ties. At least, it is well established outside the US.

The American media add up the golds, silvers and bronzes, giving them equal weighting, which is ludicrous. By an amazing coincidence, this puts the Americans on top, well ahead of China. The normal method has the US far behind. But guess which way plays better in Peoria?

Engels thinks that the problem, other than the effect of George W. Bush’s presidency on America’s global standing, is because America doesn't play team sports the same way as the rest of the world - for the joy of taking part rather than the joy of winning.

Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, might agree with him. At least, so suggests Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post as she satirizes him for condemning Usain Bolt for his celebrations while ignoring alleged underage competitors and helping supress political protests at the Games.

Sour grapes from losers, or a sign that just maybe Ugly Americanism should try to keep its head down in public so as not to furnish convenient distractions?

Ever since John McCain apparently ran out of 'get out of gaffe free' cards and was actually held to account for having more homes than he could keep track of, it has this blogger wondering if the traditional media might finally be ready to fairly report the facts and not the myths about our candidates. If so, CNN's dual "Revealed" episodes on both candidates the other night was a fair start in that direction. Besides actually asking McCain about his role in the Keating 5 scandal, they also confronted him about his multiple extramarital affairs. Watch it:

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John Cole ties the affair, McCain's housing crisis, and what has been the media's Orwellian framing of elitism in this campaign all together and sums it up neatly:

Just so we are clear- visiting your grandmother while vacationing in Hawaii, the state where you were you were born- elitist.

Meeting the millionaire heiress daughter (who you will soon begin an affair with and divorce your first wife and then go on and buy a ton of houses) in Hawaii and then going on and honeymooning in Hawaii – not elitist.

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  The framing is genius.  It was just a few rogue aides; it didn't go up to the top.  No one told Monica Goodling to demand new hires pledge allegiance to George Bush or run Lexis-Nexis searches to make sure they weren't latent liberals.  Really. From Law.com: (h/t JR)

Last week, in 140, detail-laden pages, the Justice Department's two top watchdogs laid out the tale of how the Bush DOJ used political litmus tests in an attempt to hire only those lawyers who would pursue a conservative agenda.

The report places the blame for the political manipulation primarily on two top aides to then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales: Monica Goodling, the White House liaison, and D. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales' chief of staff. Both have been accused of breaking federal civil service laws and DOJ policy in using politics to vet applicants for career jobs.

But the report does something else. It provides the most detailed account yet of the inner workings of the Justice Department during the period of January 2004 to April 2007, and it shows how the two young aides were assisted in their effort by more senior officials who either actively helped their cause -- or quietly acquiesced.

The effort ranged from placing what they called "good Americans" in everything from temporary Main Justice slots to career judgeships in the federal immigration courts. More than 480 lawyers interviewed for career and political positions were tested with queries like, "Tell us about your political philosophy."

What follows is the story -- based almost entirely on the report -- of how they gained power and how they used it.  read on...

The report is named An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring by Monica Goodling and other Staff in the Office of the Attorney General (.pdf).  According to Law.com, current Attorney General Michael Mukasey finds the report "disturbing" and former AG Alberto Gonzales feels "vindicated."

Attorney General Michael Mukasey said he was "disturbed" by the report's findings.

"I have said many times, both to members of the public and to Department employees, it is neither permissible nor acceptable to consider political affiliations in the hiring of career Department employees," Mukasey said in a statement. "And I have acted, and will continue to act, to ensure that my words are translated into reality so that the conduct described in this report does not occur again at the Department."

According to the report, Gonzales told investigators he was not aware of what his top aides were doing. Today, the former attorney general greeted the report as vindication.

"I am gratified that the efforts I initiated to address this issue have now been affirmed and augmented by this report," Gonzales said in a statement issued through his spokesman, Robert Bork Jr.

Oh good Lord, Bork Jr.??? Amazing how some names keep cropping up.  Look, if you don't think that longtime loyal Bushie Gonzales (as well as many others with White House access) didn't know what was going on, I got a bridge to sell you...cheap.

Last week, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) filed charges for the first time against a sitting head of state, charging President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan with three counts of genocide, five counts of crimes against humanity and two counts of war crimes. Fareed Zakaria had Sudan's ambassador to the United Nations on his CNN show, GPS, to discuss the charges, which he called "a joke" and cited the U.S.' 2002 withdrawal from the ICC treaty as an example of why Sudan does not recognize the court's authority and will not cooperate with it:

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ZAKARIA: Will your government mount a defense in the International Criminal Court?

MOHAMAD: We have no relation with the International Criminal Court. We don't recognize its authority. We are not going to cooperate with it.

ZAKARIA: But of course, you know that other governments that did not recognize the Criminal Court were still forced to extradite their leaders. I'm thinking of Yugoslavia.

MOHAMAD: No. I don't care about them. As far as we are concerned, we are not members. We have been told these days repeatedly that the ICC is an independent body. And so, OK, if it's an independent body, I am not a U.N. organ. We have full right to be part of it or not. And we choose not to be part of it, like the United States. ...(full transcript)

Complicating the ICC's ability to pursue war crimes charges, as referenced in the interview by Sudan's UN ambassador, is President Bush's "unsigning" of the International Criminal Court treaty in 2002. Though President Bush has publicly denounced the killings in Sudan as genocide, the administration has soft-pedaled sanctions against the Sudanese government to preserve its extensive intelligence collaboration with Sudan, once a safe haven for bin Laden that has become a crossroads for Islamic militants making their way to Iraq and Pakistan.

The most major impediment to ending the genocide in Darfur has been China's longstanding diplomatic protection and economic support in return for its access to the 500,000 barrels of oil that Sudan produces daily. China, also not a signatory to the ICC treaty, was revealed in a report about a week ago by the BBC to be in violation of the UN arms embargo there through its export of weapons and training of fighter pilots.

Supporters of Barack Obama who would like to see the United States reembrace the International Criminal Court (ICC) treaty, thereby reaffirming its commitment to human rights, have created a group on the candidate's website, my.barackobama.com.

CNN's AC 360° on Friday took a look at both of the Democratic and Republican candidates and their wives, and the short bio they did on John McCain gave viewers little reason, if any, why he would be very well suited at all to become our next President or our military's Commander in Chief.

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In fact, it helped reveal a McCain who was an underachieving party boy during his military career - lucky to have graduated at all, much less fifth from the bottom of his class in the Naval Academy, and reminded viewers of his involvement in one of the biggest financial scandals to touch the capitol in the 80s and 90s.

As the CNN report tells it, the lessons John McCain learned during his time as a POW were "that one of the most important things in life - along with a man's family - is to make some contribution to his country," and that his involvement in the Keating 5 scandal which resulted in the Congressional finding that he had exercised poor judgment for intervening with federal regulators on behalf of his good friend and largest political contributor/fundraiser, Charles Keating, led to his becoming "a crusader for campaign finance reform and transparency."

While the lessons learned parts may sound nice, what the segment didn't reveal was the fact that his own actions have in large part belied that account. The McCain that learned the importance of family as a POW returned to divorce his first wife in a manner that offended many of his friends and colleagues to this day, and his supposed commitment as a crusader for campaign finance reform and transparency went out the window when he began skirting or breaking many of the very campaign finance laws he used to champion just as soon as they would have applied to him during this campaign.

Seriously, what part of John McCain's past would lead anyone who actually looked at it to believe he's the one who should lead this country forward? What part of what little we know about his military record suggests he's leadership material? Is "there any significant policy position that John McCain currently holds, on any topic, that he's consistently held" about anything?

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Steve Benen: 

Fundraising for a presidential library has always been controversial, in part because, unlike contributions to U.S. political campaigns, donations to libraries can come from foreign sources, and are easier to conceal.

But this kind of corruption is striking, even by the Bush administration's standards.

The Sunday Times reports Stephen Payne, a Bush pioneer and a political appointee to the Homeland Security Advisory Council, was caught on tape offering access to key members of the Bush administration inner circle in exchange for "six-figure donations to the private library being set up to commemorate Bush's presidency."

In an undercover video, Payne is seen promising to arrange a meeting for an exiled leader of Krygystan with Dick Cheney or Condoleezza Rice. (Not President Bush because "he doesn't meet with a lot of former Presidents these days," Payne says. "I don't think he meets with hardly anyone.") All it will take for him to arrange this high-level meeting, says Payne, is "a couple hundred thousand dollars, or something like that."

Specifically, Payne tells a Kazakh politician he knew as Eric Dos that Payne would come up with "the exact budget," which would be "somewhere between $600,000 and $750,000, with about a third of it going directly to the Bush library." The contribution would "be a show of ‘we're interested, we're your friends, we're still friends.'"

The TimesOnline piece makes no specific mention of the politician that Dos is representing, but both Benen and BooMan narrow it down to former Krygystan President Askar Akayev, and possibly a motive as well:

(T)he prospective client who is being asked to pony up $600,000 - $750,000 ($200,000-$250,000 of which will go to the Bush Library) is former President Askar Akayev, as he is the only exiled former president of Kyrgyzstan in existence. Akayev's human rights record is mixed. For the region, it was better than average, but in the years just prior to his ouster he began to restrict and harass political and media freedoms.

The Times of London sting operation is curious. The video shows a meeting between Stephen Payne, [who is a Bush pioneer, a political appointee to the Homeland Security Advisory Council, and a Senior Advance Representative traveling internationally in advance of and with President Bush and Vice President Cheney], an unidentified representative of Askar Akayev, and an undercover reporter who is surreptitiously videotaping the conversation. It appears that the latter two gentleman colluded in setting up the sting and that part of the agreement was that the Times would not mention Akayev's name or country in print. What possible motivation would Akayev have to embarrass the Bush administration? Let's look at who Akayev blamed for his ouster:

The ousted Kyrgyzstan president, Askar Akayev, last night accused the US of being behind the "anti-constitutional coup" which forced him to flee the country last week, and said he wold only resign if given sufficient a guarantee of his personal safety.

 I believe we have what is known as payback time, ladies and gentlemen.

Senate Guru:

Norm Coleman sides with union-busters, while Al Franken sides with hard-working Minnesotans. Meanwhile, Franken releases a new ad that actually blew my mind with an overwhelmingly simple message - very worth the thirty seconds to watch:

Franken: In Washington they debate whether former members of Congress should wait one year or two years before they can become registered lobbyists. How about never? Right now hundreds of former Senators and Congressmen are lobbying for big oil and special interests. No wonder gas is at $4 a gallon. ...

"No wonder" is right. Franken's vow to work to change the rules to prevent members of Congress from ever becoming lobbyists is one other Democrats would do well to emulate.

A 2005 study by Public Citizen found that 43% of Senators and Representatives who left office since 1998 went on to become lobbyists, and that was well before likes of ex-House Speaker Dennis Hastert and ex-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott abandoned their elected offices before their terms expired to join their ranks. Instead of running for office to serve their country and the public good, politicians (53% of Republicans and 33% of Democrats) increasingly have instead (ab)used their offices as a stepping-stone so they can cash in, and it's no secret we all suffer for it.

    Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington blog:

Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Senate Select Committee on Ethics asking for an investigation into whether Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) violated the Senate gifts rule by accepting lodging from Republican operative Jeff Larson.  The pdf copy of the complaint can be found here.

According to National Journal, in July 2007, Sen. Coleman began paying Mr. Larson $600 per month to rent a portion of a basement apartment in a Capitol Hill townhouse owned by Mr. Larson.  After the magazine began making inquiries about the senator’s living arrangement, Sen. Coleman “discovered” that he had failed to pay rent in November 2007 and January 2008, and his wife gave Mr. Larson a personal check for the $1,200.  Last year, Sen. Coleman sold Mr. Larson some furniture -- a couch, table and chairs and a desk -- to cover one month’s rent, and Mr. Larson held onto Sen. Coleman’s March rent check for three months, until June 17, before cashing it only days after National Journal began asking questions.

Mr. Larson runs the telemarketing firm FLS Connect, which has been paid over a million dollars by Sen. Coleman’s campaign committees and leadership PAC since 2001.  Mr. Larson is also the PAC’s treasurer and FLS has been providing it with office space in St. Paul.  In addition, Mr. Larson’s wife, Dorene Kainz, has been working in Sen. Coleman’s St. Paul office, but after National Journal asked about her position, Sen. Coleman’s office announced that she would soon be leaving the office.

 Unsurprisingly, Coleman went on the attack: 

The only surprise is that it took Al Franken’s surrogate this long to file a politically motivated attack against Senator Coleman. The Executive Director of CREW, Melanie Sloan, was a featured guest who made at least 50 appearances on Al Franken’s radio show - appearances that were marked with theme music dedicated to her and made her a reliable attack dog for the Democrat Party. We will probably see pigs flying before she gets around to filing an ethics complaint against her former boss, and current political ally, DSCC Chairman Chuck Schumer, for his own rental arrangement. The record is clear that Senator Coleman paid fair market value for a cramped basement bedroom, and attacks by Franken’s surrogates won’t change those facts.

Yeah well, while Melanie Sloan did appear on Al Franken's Air America show frequently, CREW is hardly the only organization noticing the cozy relationship between Coleman and Larson.  

Think Progress:

With a contempt of Congress vote looming by Rep. Henry Waxman’s (D-CA) House Oversight Committee, President Bush asserted executive privilege this morning to block the committee’s subpoenas for documents relating to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to reject California’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to override scientific recommendations on ozone standards.

Waxman’s committee had scheduled the 10 am business meeting to hold contempt votes for EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and White House Office of Management and Budget regulatory administrator Susan Dudley. On May 20, Johnson appeared before the committee, without the subpoenaed documents and evading questions about Bush’s involvement. Read on...

As you might imagine, Henry Waxman isn't too happy. From TPM:

I don’t think we’ve had a situation like this since Richard Nixon was president. When the President of the United States, may have been involved in acting contrary to law and the evidence that would determine that question for Congress, in exercising our oversight, is being blocked by an assertion of executive privilege. I would hope and expect this administration would not be making this assertion without a valid basis for it, but to date I have not seen a valid instance of their executive privilege. Read on...

As the American people sit and watch the Democrats  cave to George Bush and the GOP on issues like FISA and war funding without provisions for troop withdrawal, there is little hope that Congress will step up and do the right thing. Someone should be held accountable for these crimes, but so far, the Democratic leadership has shown no real stomach to fulfill their constitutional duties. With impeachment off the table, this, like so many other crimes, will go unpunished. 

Bloomberg:

June 6 (Bloomberg) -- Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who was forced from his job amid a controversy over the firings of federal prosecutors, has been hired to provide assistance to a special master on a patent case.

Gonzales will help former U.S. District Judge Layn R. Phillips oversee settlement talks in the case of a Texas company which claims banks such as Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc.'s Citibank and Bank of America Corp. are violating its patents for taking and transmitting digital images of checks.

The judge overseeing the case, U.S. District Judge David Folsom in Marshall, Texas, ``has no objection to Mr. Gonzales's assistance in this case, and believes he can provide valuable assistance to the Special Master,'' Phillips wrote in the order. Read on...

Times are tough, with the recession, mortgage foreclosure crisis and rising unemployment, but it appears former Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales has finally landed on his feet. Well, if you're trying to find evidence of illegal activity, why not hire someone who has experience in breaking the law? Right? More from TPM...

Despite the fact that much of the news coverage for the past few weeks on McCain has revolved around his lobbyist-run campaign, especially Co-Chair "Foreclosure Phil" Gramm's lobbying ties to "the wrong side of the ongoing mortgage foreclosure crisis," Chris Wallace's "last question" about it caught McCain by surprise Tuesday night, and left him stammering, stuttering and fibbing:

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Wallace: Let me ask you one last question. David Axelrod said you talked in your speech today about changing the way Washington does business, but your campaign is run by two of the biggest lobbyists in Washington. How do you respond to that?

McCain (stuttering): "Uh, I di.., look, uh, the, the, those, they are not lobbyists, but th.. the fact is Americans care about my vision and plan of action for the future,"... blah blah bs, blah ... 'Obama is a liberal' blah...

Wallace didn't press any further (of course) on who this "they" is, but it was a lie in any case clearly worthy of a few Pinocchios. Does the McCain campaign really not have a practiced answer at the ready for this simple a question about its mounting lobbyist problems (if so, I'm nearly certain 'um, um, they are not lobbyists' isn't it) or did McCain just get so comfortable on the Republican News Network he blanked on the script?

Last week we brought you this story about McCain campaign Co-Chair Phil Gramm and his lobbying efforts that put him on the wrong side of the ongoing mortgage foreclosure crisis. Now, it appears Gramm's association with the aging Republican senator's campaign is doing far more harm that previously known. UBS, a bank for which Gramm lobbied, is now under investigation for alleged use of overseas tax havens to hide assets of its wealthy clients from U.S. authorities -- while in office, Gramm also supported these tax havens after 9/11, which hampered the government's ability to track Osama bin Laden's financial network before 9/11.

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In the #3 story on Monday's Countdown, Keith Olbermann talks with The Nation's Chris Hayes about the stench of lobbyists that continuously plagues John McCain's campaign and how this and other devastating scandals completely blows his anti-lobbyist, tough-on-terror campaign theme:

Hayes: "...What this reveals is actually a really profound contradiction at the heart of the Republican coalition, the conservative coalition and McCain's campaign, which is on the one hand, it's home to the most sort of, chest-beating, self righteous moralists about foreign policy - we can't talk to Ahmedenajad because he's an anti-Semite, at the same time it's a party who's agenda is run by global conglomerates that pursue dollar and profit with no regard for any kind of sense of morality..."