memeorandum: The White House and Congress Seem Headed Toward a Familiar Collision (Adam Liptak/New York Times)

12:15 PM ET, March 21, 2007

Top Items:

David C. Iglesias / New York Times:

Why I Was Fired — WITH this week's release of more than 3,000 Justice Department e-mail messages about the dismissal of eight federal prosecutors, it seems clear that politics played a role in the ousters. — Of course, as one of the eight, I've felt this way for some time.

Discussion: The Mahablog, Booman Tribune, Macsmind, The Sideshow, DownWithTyranny!, Bench Conference, Law Blog, The Washington Note, The Carpetbagger Report, Gateway Pundit, Brilliant at Breakfast, Daily Kos, Donklephant, The Impolitic, TalkLeft, Cliff Schecter and Norwegianity

Laurie Kellman / Associated Press:

House panel OKs Rove, Miers subpoenas — WASHINGTON - A House panel on Wednesday approved subpoenas for President Bush's political adviser, Karl Rove and other top White House aides, setting up a constitutional showdown over the firings of eight federal prosecutors.

Discussion: 2Millionth Web Log, The Gun Toting Liberal ™, NewsHog and All Spin Zone

Sheryl Gay Stolberg / New York Times:

Bush Clashes With Congress on Prosecutors — President Bush and Congress clashed Tuesday over an inquiry into the firing of federal prosecutors and appeared headed toward a constitutional showdown over demands from Capitol Hill for internal White House documents and testimony from top advisers to the president.

Discussion: The RBC, The Moderate Voice, Lynn Sweet, Balkinization, Matthew Yglesias, The Carpetbagger Report, The Democratic Daily, the talking dog, State of the Day, The Anonymous Liberal, democracyarsenal.org, Discourse.net and Think Progress

MSNBC:

House panel subpoenas White House aides — Move sets up a constitutional showdown over firings of U.S. attorneys — WASHINGTON - A House panel on Wednesday defied the White House and authorized subpoenas for President Bush's political adviser, Karl Rove and other top aides …

Adam Liptak / New York Times:

The White House and Congress Seem Headed Toward a Familiar Collision — "Once executive privilege is asserted," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority in a 2004 Supreme Court decision, "coequal branches of the government are set on a collision course."

Discussion: The Carpetbagger Report and Salon

New York Times:

What People Really Need — In nasty and bumbling comments made at the White House yesterday, President Bush declared that "people just need to hear the truth" about the firing of eight United States attorneys. That's right. Unfortunately, the deal Mr. Bush offered Congress …

Discussion: Firedoglake, Balkinization, The Heretik, NewsHog, Tennessee Guerilla Women, Shakespeare's Sister, Hullabaloo, Rising Hegemon and Think Progress

CNN:

House panel defies Bush, votes for subpoenas … WASHINGTON (CNN) — House Democrats voted Wednesday to give their leaders the authority to force White House officials to testify on the firings of U.S. attorneys. — The House Judiciary subcommittee vote was to authorize subpoenas.

Discussion: Unfogged

Laurie Kellman / Associated Press:
Bush Aides Facing Subpoenas Over Firings

Discussion: Patterico's Pontifications

White House:
President Bush Addresses Resignations of U.S. Attorneys

Discussion: The Huffington Post, LiberalOasis, Pam's House Blend, NewsBusters.org, CorrenteWire, Crooks and Liars, Washington Wire, The Reaction, NewsHog, rubber hose, The Heretik, Daily Kos, ABCNEWS and The Impolitic

TBogg:
Little Big President

Discussion: Wonkette, Angry Bear, Michelle Malkin and Outside The Beltway

U.S. Newswire:
Reid: Rove Should Testify Under Oath

Discussion: Bloomberg, Brilliant at Breakfast and MyDD

Ed Morrissey / Captain's Quarters:
Bush Digs In, Democrats Double Down

Discussion: Los Angeles Times and Balloon Juice

Newsweek:
A 'Reasonable' Man — Bush's latest efforts at damage control …

Discussion: All Spin Zone and The Daily Background

Richard A. Serrano / Los Angeles Times:
Making a list of reasons for firing U.S. attorneys

Discussion: TPMmuckraker, The Carpetbagger Report and Washington Post

Marc Morano / epw.senate.gov:

Blogs - Blogs — Filter by: — Al Gore Continues to Demand Special Treatment — From behind the scenes on Capitol Hill: Former Vice President Al Gore, despite being given major preferential treatment, has violated the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee's (EPW) hearing rules.

Discussion: Hot Air, Redstate, Sister Toldjah and Riehl World View

New York Times:

Star in New Role, Gore Revisits Old Stage — The last time Al Gore appeared publicly inside the United States Capitol, he was certifying the Electoral College victory of George W. Bush. He returns on Wednesday, a heartbreak loser turned Oscar boasting Nobel hopeful globe trotting multimillionaire pop culture eminence.

Discussion: The Swamp, Wonkette, Althouse and Brendan Nyhan

Shailagh Murray / Washington Post:
Gore Returns to Capitol Hill a Hero and a Target

Discussion: The Democratic Daily and Connecting.the.Dots

CNN:

Schwarzenegger: Rush Limbaugh is 'irrelevant' … SACRAMENTO, California (CNN) — Rush Limbaugh likes to call himself "The Most Dangerous Man in America" because critics have long worried about how his powerful radio show shapes the political landscape. — And then came California …

Discussion: Redstate, Matthew Yglesias and Liberal Values

Robert Salladay / Political Muscle:
Schwarzenegger Calls Rush Limbaugh Irrelevant

Discussion: Michael P.F. van der Galiën and PoliPundit.com

Robert Salladay / Los Angeles Times:
Governor calls Limbaugh 'irrelevant'

Discussion: TIME

RushLimbaugh.com Home:
Schwarzenegger Sold Out — BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

Discussion: Macsmind and Political Muscle

Jonathan Weisman / Washington Post:

Democrats Split on Iraq Bill — Even Vote Counters Aren't Lined Up Behind Spending Measure — One of the Democrats' chief designated vote counters, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), is actively working against the Iraq war spending bill. The leadership's senior chief deputy whip …

Discussion: Democrats.com, The Strata-Sphere, Right Wing Nut House, QandO, The American Street, Redstate, Betsy's Page, This ain't Hell, Blue Crab Boulevard, Hot Air, DownWithTyranny!, Donklephant, TalkLeft and Gateway Pundit

Jonathan E. Kaplan / The Hill: It's tough to get 218 votes, so Speaker gets tough, too

R. Jeffrey Smith / Washington Post:

FBI Violations May Number 3,000, Official Says — The Justice Department's inspector general told a committee of angry House members yesterday that the FBI may have violated the law or government policies as many as 3,000 times since 2003 as agents secretly collected the telephone …

Discussion: Associated Press, Salon and Counterterrorism Blog

Scott Shane / New York Times:
F.B.I. Is Warned Over Its Misuse of Data Collection

Discussion: The Heretik

New York Times:

Doctors' Ties to Drug Makers Are Put on Close View — Dr. Allan Collins may be the most influential kidney specialist in the country. He is president of the National Kidney Foundation and director of a government-financed research center on kidney disease.

Discussion: The Moderate Voice and TPMCafe blogs

Eli Lake / New York Sun:

Obama Rebuffs Soros — Billionaire's Comments on Aipac Are Scored — WASHINGTON — Leading Democrats, including Senator Obama of Illinois, are distancing themselves from an essay published this week by one of their party's leading financiers that called for the Democratic Party to …

Discussion: Captain's Quarters, TIME and Sister Toldjah

Mark Mellman / The Hill:

Hounding Fox News coverage — Journalists strive to report the news, not to be the news. So Fox News should have been a bit embarrassed to headline a story that ended with the Nevada Democratic Party canceling Fox's sponsorship of a pre-caucus debate. — Then again, Fox is not a typical news organization.

Discussion: MyDD and Liberal Values

NY1:

Clinton Says She's Not Worried About "1984" Ad Impact — In an interview with NY1 Tuesday, Senator Hillary Clinton addressed the controversial new video that's attacking her credibility and promoting the presidential campaign of chief rival, Barack Obama. — After talking about Senate …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, The Moderate Voice, techPresident, On Deadline and TIME

Robert J. Samuelson / Washington Post:

Hollywood's Climate Follies — "My fellow Americans, people all over the world, we need to solve the climate crisis. It's not a political issue. It's a moral issue. We have everything we need to get started, with the possible exception of the will to act. That's a renewable resource.

Discussion: Blue Crab Boulevard, Reason Magazine and ShopFloor.org