Wonkette

This week, Carl Levin, Elizabeth Kucinich, Ted Koppel, Russ Feingold, George Tenet, Sam Brownback, and Dennis Kucinich were all spotted being various degrees of famous at various places by our spies and operatives. Voyeuristic fun, as always, is after the jump.

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The long, slow roll-out of George Tenet’s self-serving, Cheney-trashing book/60 Minutes appearance continues with the requisite Times advance copy-based front page story. MORE »

* Hate crime legislation makes Jesus cry. [Traditional Values Coalition via Pandagon]
* Mike Huckabee’s son busted for carrying a handgun and at least 50 extra pounds through the Little Rock airport. [Radar]
* Iraqi government spokesman Dan Bartlett not happy about the timeline bill. [The Left Coaster]
* And neither is Joe “I Hold Harry Reid’s Life In My Hands” Lieberman. [GOP Bloggers]
* Paul Begala is so fucking pissed at that “gasbag” David Broder. [HuffPo]
* Sam Brownback’s in the closet … on immigration. [Hit & Run] MORE »

George Tenet’s book will undoubtedly be self-serving bullshit, but the best kind of self-serving bullshit: the kind that’s full of hilarious attacks against everyone he used to work with! MORE »

An operative writes: MORE »

* Mitt Romney and John McCain are raising more money from conservative donors than the guy no one’s heard of, and the gay one. [WP]
* House opposes war in 100 words or less. [WP, NYT]
* President Bush ignores anyway, obv. [LAT]
* Libby trial meme of the day: Bob Woodward likes talking dirty with Richard Armitage. [WP, NYT]
* Shillest of the “right wing shills” make John Edwards’ campaign blogger cry, leave. [WP]
* The Basketball Diaries, by George Tenet. [NYT]
* Majority of Americans want troops, Bush home by 2008. [USAT]

Rumsfeld says he wants to retire to his Taos ranch, but federal prosecutors in Germany have a different idea: They’d like to charge him with war crimes. Germany’s top prosecutor gets a big ugly pile of legal documents next week from 11 plaintiffs charging human-rights abuses at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and various other U.S. terror jails. MORE »

In a career move best described as “Nyah Nyah,” ex-CIA chief George Tenet has been hired as director of QinetiQ, the British Ministry of Defence’s mad-scientist division.

“I am especially interested in the capacity of the company’s technologies to meet a number of the challenges faced by our nations’ military and intelligence personnel,” the press release quotes Tenet, who sat on his ass while 9/11 happened and then pushed that whole phony WMD thing so we could occupy Iraq forever.

More slime, after the jump.

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• Republican strategists accept possibility of losing control of Congress in midterm elections, but not the responsibility for it — that’s Foley’s fault. [WP, NYT]

• FBI knew about Foley emails in July, concluded they “did not rise to the level of criminal activity.” [WP]
• Independent spending by political organizations out paces candidates’ own campaign expenditures in closest races. [WP]
• Bush happy to raise money for any Republican Congressional candidates that will have him. [NYT]
• George Tenet did brief Condoleezza Rice about a “looming” (NYT) and “imminent” (WP) threat from Al Qaeda (NYT) or al-Qaeda (WP), in July 2001. [WP, NYT]
• Lewinsky blowjob jokes once common among Capitol Pages, to be replaced by Foley anal sex jokes. [LAT, USAT]

* Libby reveals that Bush, Cheney authorized the leaking of classified information to defend the war in Iraq; Rove, Fleisher, Powell, Armitage, Tenet will likely be called to testify. Bush in 2003: “If there’s a leak out of the administration, I want to know who it is. And if a person has violated law, the person will be taken care of.” [WP, NYT, WSJ, USAT]
* Development makes Bush a central player in leak story; court papers “implicate Bush as knowing about efforts to disseminate sensitive information — and also as orchestrating them.” Senior White House official says Bush sees a difference between leaks and what he reportedly condoned. [WP]
* Bush had the legal authority to approve disclosure, say experts, but “the leak was highly unusual and amounted to using sensitive intelligence data for political gain.” [WP]
* Senators leaders agree on immigration legislation –a “shot at citizenship” for most of the country’s illegal population, a guest-worker program, and tougher security– though passage is “uncertain.” [WP, NYT, USAT]
* Gonzales says Bush could authorize warrantless eavesdropping of domestic calls: “I’m not going to rule it out.” [WP, NYT]
* McKinney: “I am sorry that this misunderstanding happened at all, and I regret its escalation. And I apologize.” [WP, WP, USAT]

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