Hope you’ll step upstairs to the latest EW post discussing the NYT piece.

But the blanket (argument that) anybody near the White House doesn’t have to come to a hearing, that wouldn’t wash in my son’s freshman class…much less with me.”

On Bolten, Conyers said, “He’s got a lot of documents.”

Oh, AP is saying…

Conyers wants criminal probe of Bush ‘abuses’

Have a nice day!

Now, back to your regularly scheduled enlightenment!

With Bolten’s father Seymour having worked for CIA, it’s possible that his opinions about Cheney were shaped early on by someone who could have been a contemporary of Poppy.

And there was a darker possibility. As a former Bush senior aide explains, “I’m sure the President and [chief of staff] Josh [Bolten] and Fred had a concern that somewhere, deep in there, there was a cover-up.”

Oh my goodness, admit culpability…?!!

Behind Bush’s Fury, a Vow Made in 2001
Mr. Bush received a prolonged, standing ovation from the Republican crowd when he added, “There can be no excuse for anyone entrusted with vital intelligence to leak it — and no excuse for any newspaper to print it.”

Disregarding flat reversal, conflicting explanations, O’Donnell called Bush move to replace Rumsfeld “decisive”
O’DONNELL: This president, whether you love him or hate him, is decisive — and he moved forward and was apparently led by his new White House chief of staff, [Joshua] Bolten, to make this decision. From our reporting at NBC News, what we know is that of course this decision to get rid of Secretary Rumsfeld at least was discussed within the last couple days before the election, that there was a disagreement between the political people and Josh Bolten, who is the White House chief of staff and Vice President Cheney, who wanted Rumsfeld to stay. That decision was then put off until after the election and then, lo and behold, what happened today.

And what does Karl think about “Yosh”?

“He’s soft-spoken but very clear thinking,” said Karl Rove, Bush’s chief political adviser. “I love him in an entirely appropriate way. He’s a wonderful person. He’s professionally and personally one of the best people I’ve ever worked with.”

One wonders whether Karl’s feelings are about to get hurt again…

That meant taking up the pardon question again was, as a West Wing veteran put it later, like passing a kidney stone — for the second time. Bolten declined to take a stand, according to several associates.

White House officials declined to speak on the record about Rove’s kidney stones, due to the extreme delicacy of discussions about internal organs of top presidential advisers.

Who’s cooperating with Leahy? …Et tu Josh?!!

But you forgot one piece:

Don’t ask us (the media, who failed at our jobs as Fourth Estate); blame Cheney.

It’s one of the single biggest reasons we’re still talking about Cheney and his life outside of prison. It was always easier to make a really unsympathetic character like Cheney into the bogey man instead of doing the work required to show exactly how many minor bogeys were involved.

And the divide is very much by affiliation, too – Matalin wasn’t a Bushie as much as she was a Cheney-bot. Nice work, rings true, would love to be a fly on the wall with Calabresi/Weisskopf to confirm whether your analysis is accurate.

Have a feeling there’s one more Bush aide we could pick out if we tried, the tone of the piece was that of spoken-word-transcribed, not a creation stitched of facts.