Night & Day

John Conyers (Moonbat-MI) then on presidential pardons/grants of clemency:

Is this the same Conyers that voted AGAINST a resolution condemning Clinton for giving clemency to TERRORISTS?

[EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF THE CONGRESS THAT THE PRESIDENT SHOULD NOT HAVE GRANTED CLEMENCY TO TERRORISTS — (House of Representatives - September 09, 1999)]

NOTE: The resolution (H.Con.Res. 180) passed by a vote of 311-41; 72 voted ‘present.’ (Tally available here.)

And here’s what Conyers had to say THEN:

“Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to what is clearly a politically motivated and totally senseless resolution. We are a Nation of laws, and if any matter is abundantly clear by our Constitution, it is that the President has the sole and unitary power to grant clemency. Is there any Member that does not understand that? Every President has the sole and unitary power to grant clemency…Now the reason that he has the power to grant clemency is that it is that the President is uniquely positioned to consider the law and the facts that apply in each request for clemency.”

Conyers now:

"In light of yesterday's announcement by the President that he was commuting the prison sentence for Scooter Libby, it is imperative that Congress look into presidential authority to grant clemency, and how such power may be abused," John Conyers said. "Taken to its extreme, the use of such authority could completely circumvent the law enforcement process and prevent credible efforts to investigate wrongdoing in the executive branch."

"If any matter is abundantly clear by our Constitution, it is that the President has the sole and unitary power to grant clemency. Is there any Member that does not understand that?" Apparently, Mr. Conyers, the answer is "Yes, there are Members who don't understand that." Or should I say "don't remember that"?

BTW, Tony Snow weighed in on the matter of Bubba and Conyers flapping their gums over the Libby thing:

The White House on Thursday made fun of former President Clinton and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, for criticizing President Bush's decision to erase the prison sentence of former aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

"I don't know what Arkansan is for chutzpah, but this is a gigantic case of it," presidential spokesman Tony Snow said.

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has scheduled hearings on Bush's commutation of Libby's 2 1/2-year sentence.

"Well, fine, knock himself out," Snow said of Conyers. "I mean, perfectly happy. And while he's at it, why doesn't he look at January 20th, 2001?"

In the closing hours of his presidency, Clinton pardoned 140 people, including fugitive financier Marc Rich.

Night and Day

From Ace:

Ted Kennedy On Immigration

1965: "The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs."

1986: "This amnesty will give citizenship to only 1.1 to 1.3 million illegal aliens. We will secure the borders henceforth. We will never again bring forward another amnesty bill like this."

2007: "Now it is time for action. 2007 is the year we must fix our broken system." (With amnesty, like the one from 21 years earlier that he swore would never be brought forward again! - Ed.)

Night & Day

From Newsbusters:

One week apart, "The Early Show" provided very different segments about 2008 presidential contenders. The April 2 edition provided a very glowing, positive review of the candidates. The April 9 edition was far more critical of the contenders. Why the difference? The former reviewed the Democrats. The latter reviewed the Republicans.

On April 2 Hannah Storm discussed Hillary Clinton’s "amazing [fund raising] numbers." John Harris of Politico.com agreed noting "they are incredibly impressive numbers." Though Democratic rival John Edwards raised a much smaller $14 million, Storm wanted to know if the former vice presidential nominee saw a "spike in donations" after his wife announced her breast cancer is not curable.

One week later, host Hannah Storm high lighted that McCain announced "lower fund-raising numbers than his rivals," though his $12.5 million is not far behind Senator Edwards’s $14 million. Storm also inquired whether McCain "lost some credibility when it comes to the war" after his recent positive statements regarding Iraqi progress.

After McCain, "The Early Show" co-host moved on to another Republican with alleged problems, Rudy Giuliani and his association with Bernard Kerik. Storm noted Kerik’s alleged ties to the mob and asked "how problematic" that is. Harris added that voters may "find some of the details...less than attractive." The transcripts both from April 2 and April 9 are below.

The transcripts are available at Newsbusters for you to see for yourselves. One week, flowery coverage of the Dem nominees. A mere seven days later, critical coverage of the GOP nominees. What a difference a week makes.

Nope...no liberal media bias!

Night & Day

Today's N&D brought to you by the letters "A" and "S", for Andrew Sullivan. For those of you who don't know, Sully is a gay blogger who sometimes leans left and sometimes leans right. As a matter of fact, he is known as being consistently inconsistent, more so than even (dare I say it?)...Jean-François Heinz-Kerry (who is rumored to have served in Vietnam)!

Anywho, Jonah Goldberg catches Sully in one of his more obvious flip-flops:

I think I've been pretty good about not posting much about Andrew Sullivan, but I think this is just too funny.

First he posts:

"Edwards Suspends Campaign
22 Mar 2007 12:17 pm

He does it because his wife has a recurrence of cancer in some degree to be further explored. It is of a piece with his character to do this; and a simple testament that he has the right priorities and values to be a president of the United States. Sorry, Ms Coulter. But this man will be remembered for a character you do not even want to possess.

And then, immediately afterwards when the news changes, he writes:

"Edwards Forges On
22 Mar 2007 12:39 pm

So, despite earlier reports, Edwards will not suspend his campaign. Good for him. And if anyone did not know of Elizabeth Edwards' extraordinary character before, they do now. What I saw in this press conference was the reality of family values - not the rhetoric, not the divisiveness, not the politics, just the reality of an actual family dealing with real issues. We all face such issues. Cancer survivors and their families know it all too well. So do those of us who live with HIV, diabetes, Parkinsons and many other diseases that patients can now live with, rather than die from. In this, John Edwards is doing a public service. He was admirably candid about his wife's cancer being treatable, if not curable. That paradigm is increasingly common - and it's affirming to see someone in public life live through it so positively, so admirably and so passionately. She shouldn't give in to it. One key to surviving serious illness is to live positively and candidly while you treat it. With HIV, I learned to repeat to myself a triad that was essential to surviving any serious medical condition: Own it, face it, beat it. That's what the Edwardses did today, and they will help a lot of people through their example.

The campaign should go on, as life goes on. It should neither help nor hurt it. But I will say this: Elizabeth Edwards is a truly remarkable human being. And her marriage is an inspiration to all of us.

Me: Edwards is a saint when he drops out. Edwards is a saint when he doesn't. I don't have a major problem with the sentiments of either post taken individually, but taken together, we can now see that the intervals between self-contradictory statements by Sullivan has fallen to a mere 22 minutes. Pretty soon the ends of his sentences will contradict the beginnings.

Sully: he actually did support Edwards when he dropped out...before he didn't.

Night and Day

When the Republicans were in power...:

Under earlier GOP rule, Democrats routinely attacked Republicans for extending the voting time, often citing the 2003 vote on the Medicare prescription drug bill that was famously held open three hours. And Hoyer himself was one of their foremost critics.

In a July 8, 2004, news release, Hoyer railed against GOP leaders for extending a 15-minute vote to 38 minutes in order to defeat a spending amendment offered by former Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

"House Republican leaders proved once again today that they will stop at virtually nothing to win a vote, even if that means running roughshod over the most basic principles of democracy such as letting members vote their conscience and calling the vote after the allotted time has elapsed," Hoyer said.

"They ought to be ashamed of themselves, but when it comes to holding votes open and twisting the arms of their own members they clearly have no shame,’’ he went on. “These back-alley tactics have no place in the greatest deliberative body in the world. They might be the lifeblood of the tin-horn dictator, but not a world leader. It's an embarrassment.”

With the Democrats in power...:

Now in the majority and facing their first close vote with the $124 billion wartime spending bill, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) is leaving open the possibility that Democrats might extend the vote beyond the usual 15 minutes.

Asked Wednesday night whether Democrats would keep to the time limit, Hoyer paused, then pointed out that many votes can run a few minutes longer for various reasons. Pressed further by a reporter who pointed out that Democrats themselves had often criticized Republicans on this very point, Hoyer said, "It won't be open three hours. How about that?"

"How about 30 minutes?" the reporter asked.

"I won't guarantee it," Hoyer replied.

Pelosi and Hoyer, "tin-horn dictators"? Nuance.

Night and Day

Today's N&D brought to you by the letters M, S, and M again. From the Old Gray Hag's blog:

Ask most political analysts and they’ll tell you that at this point, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and Mitt Romney, the former governor of Michigan –- oops, sorry, Massachusetts –- both have about an equal chance to win their party’s nomination and become president.

But that might be tough to tell by looking at the press contingent that showed up at each announcement.

Mr. Obama’s aides said that he had credentialed more than 600 media for his announcement in Springfield., Ill., on Saturday, and while campaigns are given to exaggeration, that sure seemed right: They were everywhere, filling platforms and hotel rooms. There were crews from Japan and England (foreign news crews are the first and surest sign of a very heavily covered event) as well as some of the bigger feet in the American political media: Joe Klein, Chris Matthews and our own Maureen Dowd among them. They had to rent a full-blown American Airlines jet to cart the candidate and his reporters around.

Guess who was not here this morning as Mr. Romney made his announcement? There were probably 200 members of the media; no Japanese crews in sight. Mr. Klein, Mr. Matthews and Ms. Dowd could not be spotted. And the transportation? We are writing this from a Dornier 328 commuter jet, which has been commandeered to carry Mr. Romney’s press contingent to Des Moines. And yes, there are empty seats.

Nope...no liberal media bias.

Night & Day: "Oops" vs. "Slur"

Today's N&D courtesy of Newsbusters:

Democratic presidential candidate (for now, anyway) Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware got headlines for all the wrong reasons yesterday when he referred to Sen. Barack Obama, who's also running for president, as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy" in an interview with the New York Observer.

"Biden Unwraps His Bid for '08 With an Oops!" read the headline over Adam Nagourney's Thursday story in the New York Times. Credit the Times for putting it on the front page, and to Nagourney for bringing up Biden's equally strange comment last summer that aired on C-Span: “You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.”

But as NewsBusters' Mark Finkelstein noted, the Times' headline does give Biden the benefit of the doubt that the remark was simply an "oops!," a gaffe, and not a reflection of Biden's real feelings toward blacks.

Back in 1995, when then-House Majority Leader Dick Armey, a conservative Republican, called gay Democratic congressman Barney Frank "Barney Fag" (Armey immediately corrected himself and later apologized to Frank) he didn't get the benefit of the doubt from Times' headline writers. The headline to a front-page story back on January 28, 1995 made it clear that Armey intended to "slur" his colleague, no "oops!" about it: "No. 2 House Leader Refers to Colleague With Anti-Gay Slur."

Nope...no liberal media bias!

Night & Day

Today's N&D courtesy of Neal Boortz:

For example, from 2003: "I ended up voting for the resolution after carefully reviewing the information, intelligence that I had available, talking with people whose opinions I trusted, tried to discount the political or other factors that I didn't believe should be in any way a part of this decision." Oh really? You carefully reviewed the information? Carefully reviewed the intelligence? So you didn't make your decision lightly, Senator Clinton?

Well, sometime in the last four years she must've fallen and bumped her head.

Now in 2007, things sure have changed mightily: "So he took the authority that I and others gave him and he misused it, and I regret that deeply. And if we had known then what we know now, there never would have been a vote and I never would have voted to give this president that authority." But wait, Ms. Rodham! We thought you carefully reviewed the information? That means you didn't just take Bush's word for everything. So ... wasn't your fact-finding exercise every bit as faulty as was the president's?

Continuing with Shrillary's duplicity:

During her first visit as a presidential candidate to early-caucus state Iowa, Sen. Hillary Clinton spoke out strongly in favor of boosting the production of ethanol in the United States.

But that’s a complete turnaround from her earlier actions regarding the alternative fuel, which is made from corn – and could provide a big boost to the economy of agricultural Iowa.

At a town hall meeting in Des Moines, the state capital, on January 27, Clinton said: "I believe we’ve got to take a strong stand on limiting our dependence on foreign oil. And we have a perfect example here in Iowa about how it can work with all of the ethanol that’s being produced here.”

According to an article in the Chicago Tribune cited in a release from the Republican National Committee, Clinton "took questions and spoke of boosting production of ethanol.”

And the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Clinton "genuflected before ethanol, which is big business in Iowa.”

But as a Senator from New York, Clinton has voted at least 17 times against measures promoting ethanol production, the RNC noted.

During a question-and-answer session in 2004, Clinton was asked about "her outspoken opposition to legislation that would double the use of ethanol as a gasoline additive,” the Des Moines Register reported at the time.

"She was momentarily stumped by a question as to why she opposed the ethanol mandate, but then said she was concerned that it would raise gasoline prices for her constituents.”

Clinton reportedly said: "I have to look to first protecting and supporting the needs of the people I represent right now.”

In 2002, Clinton even signed a letter that read in part: "There is no sound public policy reason for mandating the use of ethanol.”

It’s not surprising that Clinton would have a change of heart regarding ethanol when addressing Iowa voters, considering that the ethanol industry generates $2.49 billion in total sales back to local communities, according to the Iowa Corn Growers Association.

Also, "more than 14,750 Iowa jobs are affected by ethanol,” the Association notes, "including 2,550 directly related to ethanol production.”

Flip-flopping isn't a trait unique to Jean-Francois Heinz-Kerry (who is rumored to have served in Vietnam), is it?