Wonk’d: No Summer’s High, No Warm July

It’s a good week to be a teenage girl in DC. Sex In The City’s Chris Noth was hanging out downtown, and Jordan Catalano Jared Leto was, like, totally in Dupont, or something.

Stevie Wonder was also seen, but he didn’t see you, and neither did his security guard. These and more of the hoi-polloi that we lovingly call “famous for DC,” after the jump.

READ MORE: Nicollette Sheridan, Personalities, celebrities, chris noth, colin Finnerty, evan marriott, famous-for-dc, famous-for-famous, jamie mcintyre, jared leto, joseph wilson, matthew lesko, stevie wonder, washington dc city council, wonk’d

Libby on Wilson Like Cheap Cologne on DeLay

The LA Times reports that Scooter Libby was epically obsessed with Joseph Wilson. Monitored his every media appearance. Encouraged the White House to “mount an aggressive public campaign against him.” And, in a particularly chilling instance of malicious fixation, “dictated the format for internal memos [regarding Wilson], including that paragraphs be indented.”

Okay, so that last bit isn’t exactly Fatal Attraction material, but you work with what you have. And, really, if Libby was, as Mary Matalin suggests, “the most methodical, detail-oriented and comprehensive worker of anybody [she] ever worked with in [her] life,” a man who left “no stone unturned,” wouldn’t he have known all those little details about Valerie Plame that he has reportedly testified he didn’t know, like her covert status in the CIA? On the other hand, Matalin is married to James Carville, so maybe when she describes someone as “methodical, detail-oriented, and comprehensive,” she just means she can understand Libby when he speaks. — GREG BEATO

Bush Critic Became Target of Libby, Former Aides Say [LA Times]

READ MORE: joseph wilson, los angeles times, plamegate, scooter libby

*BREAKING* The Turn of The Lew

So either Libby’s a moron or he’s a Straussian genius of recondite literary sleuthing. Where else have the “aspens turned” before?
Using to the latest in forensic science — Amazon’s “Search Inside This Book” function — WonkCentral has cracked the Da Scooter Code. Look no further. The winks, the nudges, the war-ravaged pillow talk: It’s all in here.

This is an excerpt from a wondrously titled book, The Fool’s Progress: An Honest Novel, by Edward Abbey. Redlined for your eyebrow-raising enjoyment:

And this is from another fiction with the nice Khmer Rougey name Year Zero, by Jeff Long:

Backcover description of this apocalyptic potboiler reads:

In Jerusalem, an American archaeologist working on Project Year Zero — the search for the historical Jesus — crosses the line between science and theft when he helps plunder an old Roman landfill beneath the crucifixion grounds known as Golgotha. Nathan Lee Swift’s crime will have devastating consequences. When an ancient relic is opened on the black market, a two-thousand-year-old plague is unleashed—and the dying begins.

As the pestilence threatens to wipe out humanity, he finds a chance for redemption—by finding the cure. Skirting the edges of civilization, Nathan Lee sets out to find his younger daughter and travels to Los Alamos, where a desperate tactic has been adopted: the use of human lab rats cloned from Project Year Zero remains. Now Nathan Lee will come face-to-face with one special cloned human who may hold the key to salvation—in more ways than one. Patient Zero claims to remember who he is…

[Wait for it… —ed]

And his name is Jesus Christ.

Prison seems very unfair. A better punishment would be the Nobel Prize. I mean, “Cheyenne Mountain” — come the fuck on. Give it up, Pinter. —MICHAEL WEISS

Year Zero, page 378 [Amazon]
The Fool’s Progress, page 364 [Amazon]

READ MORE: i. lewis libby, joseph wilson, judy miller, new york times, plamegate, valerie plame

What About Karl?

While Scooter Libby is the odds-on favorite in Vegas, Rove hasn’t quite left the roulette table yet. What about conspiracy on his end, and what about those 4 1/2 grueling hours under Fitzgerald’s lamp on Friday? Tom Maguire at Just One Minute blogged yesterday:

Quickly - Rove is in trouble. He testified for too long to be simply clearing up a few loose ends. On the other hand, Department of Justice guidelines discourage prosecutors from bringing in witnesses they plan to indict without warning them first. Hence, I am handicapping the probability of a Rove indictment as about 50%, or a shade higher.

But Dana Milbank at WaPo spotted Rove “rais[ing] his eyebrows and smil[ing]” as he exited the courthouse with attorney Robert Luskin. (The dancing pink condom troupe outside wasn’t that funny.) 50% seems a touch much, unless doughboy managed to Blackberry his 7-figure jail memoir contract with Putnam on the way to the Jaguar. —MICHAEL WEISS

Rove on the Bubble, Libby in Trouble [Just One Minute]
A Day of Questioning, More Questioning and…No Questions [WaPo]

READ MORE: joseph wilson, karl rove, marc cooper, patrick fitzergald, scooter libby, valerie plame

Judy Miller to Receive First Amendment Award?

The Raw Feed and AScribe are both reporting that Judy’s getting the first of what are sure to be many accolades that prove freedom equals jail time.

New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who was jailed four months for refusing to reveal the source who disclosed the identity of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame, will speak to participants of the 2005 SPJ Convention & National Journalism Conference at 8:15 a.m. Oct. 18 in Las Vegas.

Miller, who also will receive a First Amendment Award, will then join a panel discussion titled “The Reporter’s Privilege Under Siege.” Joining Miller on the panel is Associated Press reporter Josef Hebert, Patricia Hurtado of Newsday, and Bruce Sanford of Baker and Hostetler law firm.

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Unless she’s subpoenaed again.

Times reporter in leak probe to be given award next Tuesday [Raw Feed]
Judith Miller to Speak at Society of Professional Journalists Convention and National Journalism Conference [AScribe]

READ MORE: first amendment award, joseph wilson, judith miller, new york times, valerie plame

Rove Reveals Dark Side! Er, Wait…

Today, HuffPo reveals the content of Karl Rove’s off-the-record talk at gathering in Aspen, Colorado. Among other bombshells dropped by the President’s right-hand man: “On Iraq: There has been a big difference in the region. Iraq will transform the Middle East…” Whoa, there, buddy. Try not to blow my mind all at once. Oh, and: “We have not been good at explaining the success in Iraq. Polls go up and down and don’t mean anything…” You can understand why he went off the record. This is kind of loose, off-message talk that brought down Nixon.

Actually, not all the quotes are verbal Lunesta. We like this one: “Joe Wilson and I attend the same church but Joe goes to the wacky mass…” Ha-ha… Those are the masses where they talk about not killing and stuff. Also: “The only mistake we made with Katrina was not overriding the local government…” Right — putting Mike Brown in charge of more stuff. That would have been great. And as for this: “Cindy Sheehan is a clown,” well, it’s nice to see some conservatives drop that whole pretense about respecting her grief. As an encore, Rove will follow her around the country, making farting noises whenever she sits down.

Rove Off The Record On Katrina: The Only Mistake We Made Was Not Overriding The Local Government… [HuffPo]

READ MORE: bush administration, cindy sheehan, huffpo, joseph wilson, karl rove, katrina

Daily Briefing: Pet Peeves

• $286b transportation bill, which funds a record 6,371 pet projects, marks a “significant shift from Bush’s once-uncompromising stand on earmarks.” [WP, NYT, USAT]
• NARAL’s anti-Roberts advertisement sparks backlash; Annenberg study concludes “the ad is false” and “uses the classic tactic of guilt by association.” [NYT]
• 9/11 Commission was notified of military intelligence about the hijackers; Weldon says the panel’s “refusal to investigate… is evocative of the worst tendencies in the federal government that the commission worked to expose.” [NYT]
• Roberts advised O’Connor to be evasive at her confirmation hearings, suggesting he will duck questions about his opinions on specific cases. [WP]
• Specter supports administration’s position on Roberts’ memos. [NYT, WSJ]
• Protesters set to join Sheehan; Rice, Rumself plan to visit ranch today. [USAT]

READ MORE: Democrats, Republicans, White House, cindy sheehan, condoleezza rice, donald rumsfeld, hillary clinton, john g. roberts, joseph wilson, plame investigation, protests, red versus blue, roundups, senate, state politics, supreme court, valerie plame

Daily Briefing: Enter Pincus

• The Washington Post’s Walter Pincus told the grand jury that a third administration official —not Rove or Libby— volunteered information about Wilson and Plame in July 2003. [NYT]
• House passes CAFTA by 2 votes. [WSJ, LAT, WP, NYT]
• Democrats incensed that White House is withholding Roberts’ tax returns. [WP, LAT]
• Senate Judiciary Committee submits questionnaire to Roberts regarding his political activities, memberships, and his role on the presidential transition team. [NYT]
• Parties bicker about ground rules for battle over Roberts. [WP]
• Memos show Roberts was consistently conservative while working for the Reagan administration. [NYT]
• Military commander says withdrawal of troops from Iraq could begin in the spring. [WP, USAT]

READ MORE: Democrats, Republicans, congress, george w. bush, iraq, john g. roberts, joseph wilson, karl rove, roundups, valerie plame, washington post

Why We Love Anonymous Sources

Yes, Fourth Estate, public interest blah blah, Mark Felt, yeah, yeah, sanctity of pledge to whistleblowers, good, fine. But the real reason to hail this noble journalistic tradition is that in the hands of gimlet-eyed purveyors of righteous scorn like Jason Vest, it can yields quotes like this, about Joe Wilson:

“In principle, what was done to [Valerie Plame] was shitty, and someone should pay, but the way [Wilson] always goes on about how it’s the end of the world for her and national security while saying she’s a real-life Jennifer Garner Alias character is just too damn much,” says one. Similarly, prominent liberals have choked on Wilson’s self-indulgence: At the Nation Institute’s annual fundraising dinner last year, some found any inspirational qualities Wilson had to offer swamped by the tsunami-like wave of his continuous ego trip. “It wasn’t just that he was sheets to the wind when he gave his speech, it was the sheer self-righteousness of it—it was like listening to a preppy version of Fidel Castro,” recalls a noted liberal activist who was in the audience that night. “His speech was something like ‘The Top 10 Reasons to Get Rid of Bush,’ and after 45 minutes that included lowest-common-denominator stuff like ‘kids going to school hungry’—hello, Joe Wilson’s now got the weight of Head Start on his shoulders?—he was only up to number five. I mean, look, I sympathize, but it was like he was looking for a cross.”

Nice work, Jason. Drinks on us, in the usual Rosslyn parking garage.
—HOLLY MARTINS
No Heroes in l’Affaire Plame [Village Voice]

READ MORE: joseph wilson, karl rove, press, valerie plame