Wonkette

Have you heard the story of the man who is secretly the most powerful and evil member of the Bush administration? It is one of Washington’s best-kept secrets, which means that all the major and minor news magazines have run lengthy profiles on him, calling him secretly one of the most powerful and evil members of the Bush administration. His name is David S. Addington, he was Cheney’s lawyer, and now he is Cheney’s chief of staff. MORE »

Dick Cheney is so evil, the Post has started a blog about him. In a lengthy four-part series, the Post will lay bare the Dick Cheney story, and basically summarize and clarify everything we already know about him with but new, entertainingly terrifying anecdotes and interviews.

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The big news from yesterday is that Ari Fleischer revealed that Libby told him all about Valerie Plame days before Libby claims to have heard it first from Tim Russert. But anyone who thinks there isn’t ample evidence that Libby was lying hasn’t been paying attention for the last three years. MORE »

DAVID REMNICK, seated at his cluttered desk, chomps a large cigar and glowers at a back issue of USNews and World Report. A beat, then he pounds his intercom. MORE »

Good News, War-Weary Liberals! MORE »

• Democrats win concession on the investigation of pre-war intelligence by holding private Senate session; Republicans outraged by maneuver. Bill Frist: “This is an affront to me personally [and] an affront to the United States of America.” Harry Reid: “The American people had a victory today.” [WP, NYT, LAT, WT]
• White House hopes to avoid filibuster attempt by selling Alito to moderates; Karl Rove is “deeply involved” in the strategy. Arlen Specter: “I hope we do not come back to the terrible schism we had. That just about tore the Senate apart, and it has the potential to do it again, except that the stakes would be bigger. You are talking about the Supreme Court.” [WP, NYT, NYT, LAT, WT]
• Bush calls for $7b in emergency spending for avian flu preparedness: “[I]f we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare, and one day many lives could be needlessly lost because we failed to act today.” [WP, NYT]
• Democrats want to use Alito’s conservative record “to drive a wedge between Republicans and swing voters who could be critical in next year’s midterm elections.” [WSJ]
• Samuel Alito’s “legal reasoning” implies his disapproval of Roe v. Wade; legal history shows “his thinking is shaped by a traditional concept of marriage.” [WP, NYT]
• Liberal colleagues of Alito say he is no ideologue. Said one attorney, “He didn’t decide cases based on ideology, and his record was not extremely conservative.” [LAT]
• Judge in the trial of Tom DeLay is removed from the case because of his donations to Democratic candidates and causes. [WP, NYT, LAT]
• DeLay is angering some Republicans by not relinquishing influential role. Said one congressman, “My issue is having an indicted former leader hanging around the leadership offices… Why does he want to stick around? He’s not helping us.” [WP]

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