Not a Good Week for W

Martha's Vineyard, MA -- Watching the shenanigans in the nation's capital from the shores of Tashmoo Pond has been entertaining, if not exactly amusing, this week. First we got confirmation that the appointments process in the Justice Department has been severely politicized, with political hacks being put in key career positions. Then, as if to remind us of why this kind of political manipulation in the Department of Justice is so important, we had the indictment of Ted Stevens by career officials of exactly the sort that Attorney General Gonzalez was trying to replace with cronies. And today we learn that the list of cronies to be appointed came all the way from the White House.

Things haven't been much better over at the EPA. A federal judge in Florida, in a stinging rebuke to both the state and to the EPA, ruled that the Agency had turned a "blind eye" as Florida broke its own rules committing it to restore the ecosystem.

The Miccosukee Indians, who live in the Everglades, and Friends of the Everglades sued in 2004 over Florida's repeated delay in pollution cleanup deadlines.

District Court judge Allen Gold ruled that the environmentalists and the tribe "are correct." Gold wrote that "EPA has once again avoided its duty to protect the Everglades." Gold also ruled that the Florida legislature "violated its fundamental commitment and promise to protect the Everglades."

This was also the week that an internal EPA email instructing its enforcement officials not to talk to investigators, including EPA's own Inspector General, leaked out. "If you are contacted directly by the IG's office or GAO requesting information of any kind ... please do not respond to questions or make any statements," reads the e-mail sent by Robbi Farrell, the head of the Agency's Office of Enforcement and Compliance, A cynic might conclude that the Agency has something to hide. He might also wonder how effective such a missive will be, given how rapidly it leaked out. Isn't the attempt to restore the reign of terror to the ranks of the civil service a bit like trying to toughen discipline for prisoners of the Bastille -- after it was already stormed?

And, finally, this became the week when enough was enough for Congress. Four of the leading Senate overseers of the EPA -- California's Barbara Boxer, Rhode Island's Sheldon Whitehouse, Minnesota's Amy Klobuchar, and New Jersey's Frank Lautenberg finally joined the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth in demanding that EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson resign, and that the Justice Department investigate him for lying under oath to Congress about the role of the White House in Johnson's decision not to permit California to implement its tougher clean air standards for cars.

The smoking gun of Johnson's obeisance to White House pressure came in the form of testimony from a former EPA official, Jason Burnett, to Congress -- which may explain Johnson's desperate attempts to keep his enforcement staff, who probably know best where the real skeletons are buried, away from the press and the Agency's independent Inspector General.

Of course, many of the Justice Department officials who will respond to the Senators' request for an investigation are the same politically tainted staff who were illegally shoehorned into career jobs under former Attorney General Gonzalez at the demand of President Bush.

So while the kettle is bubbling in the nation's capital, real justice seems several hundred days away.

The Bridge to Nowhere Leavenworth?

Anchorage, AK -- Alaska Senator Ted Stevens' indictment on seven counts of concealing income reminds me of Al Capone's eventual conviction for tax evasion. Stevens presided over a massive raid on the federal treasury for years, turning it into almost a Privy Purse for Alaska's developers, road builders, and other cronies. He and his colleague on the House side, Don Young, always made it clear that anyone who didn't give them what they thought Alaska needed would pay a heavy price in terms of funding for public projects in their own states. Young, it appears, even rewrote spending bills passed by Congress before sending them to the President.

But indictment of Stevens today had nothing to do this huge misappropriation of public funds. Instead, the Justice Department maintains that he received (and failed to report) gifts from Bill Allen, the head of  Veco, an oil and construction company to which he had steered massive federal benefits. Stevens claims he's innocent. And his Republican colleagues in the Senate are, publicly at least, still full of praise for him. "He's been a fighter for his state, for his country," said Sen. Kit Bond, who serves on the Appropriations Committee with Stevens.

But the political commentators are having a field day -- the last thing that other Republican Senatorial candidates need is a spotlight on their overly cozy relationships with the oil industry during the same week that the major oil companies are announcing their unseemly record profits. At least one challenged Republican incumbent, Minnesota's Norm Coleman, also received campaign contributions from Veco. And North Carolina Sen. Elizabeth Dole has announced that she'll donate to charity $10,000 in campaign cash that she received from Stevens (she's already spent another $11,000).

There is even speculation that the ethics scandal, which also reached into the office of former Governor Frank Murkowski and could still drag Rep. Young down as well, could make Alaska a competitive state in the Presidential election. It certainly won't help Stevens's own chances of re-election.

So that $400 million Bridge to Nowhere may yet turn out to be an important ingredient in a fundamental shift in the politics of Alaska -- and America.

The Straight Talk Express Needs a Teamster at the Wheel

Oakland, CA -- Back in 2001, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters joined the Bush Administration in advocating drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It was a major blow to the progressive movement. But the most vocal advocate of the move, a Teamster leader in Alaska named Jerry Hood, was ousted by the membership several years ago. And yesterday, in a speech here, Teamster President James P. Hoffa put his union solidly back on the side of the premise that the future of both America's economy and its environment lies in a new, clean economy.  Hoffa told union members that more drilling would do nothing to ease pain at the pump, and called instead for an investment in a clean energy economy that will create new jobs.

Hoffa announced that his union no longer supports drilling the Refuge, and went on to make this remarkable statement, referring to the last eight years:

"The environment has paid an even heavier price. Global warming is for real. Air pollution is killing people and making our children sick. And you know what? We share some of the blame. In the past, we were forced to make a false choice. The choice was: Good Jobs or a Clean Environment. We were told no pollution meant no jobs. If we wanted clean air, the economy would suffer and jobs would be sent overseas. Well guess what? We let the big corporations pollute and the jobs went overseas anyway. We didn't enforce environmental regulations and the economy still went in the toilet. The middle class got decimated and the environment is on the brink of disaster. Well I say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! No more false divides. The future, if we are to prosper as a nation, will lie in a green economy...."

Meanwhile, in almost pathetic proof that the Bible is right when it says "as ye sow, so shall ye reap," John McCain had to cancel a planned trip to Louisiana, where he was going to sing the virtues of off-shore oil drilling. McCain's staff tried to pass off the cancellation as all about the weather, but there was more going in the Gulf. A collision between a tanker and a barge had just spilled 419,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil into the Mississippi River, causing a slick approximately 12 miles long that closed a 29-mile stretch of river. The visuals would, shall we say, not have resembled a Ronald Reagan "Morning in America" event.

It's clear that McCain understands that abandoning his long opposition to offshore oil drilling was an act of craven self-abasement designed to put him back in the good graces of the Republican Party's  oil wing. He now admits that leasing will have no real impact on the price of gas, but he claims that it's still a good idea because it will have a "psychological" benefit. So having to cancel a trip to avoid giving the national press corps the opportunity to do split screens -- McCain shilling for oil on one side, a ravaged Mississippi on the other -- might in some odd way be a relief, psychologically speaking. But it won't help his campaign.

For a sense of just how absurd McCain's position is -- take a look at cartoonist Mark Fiore's latest.