Today Show interviews Andrew Card and Wesley Clark.

Card won't involve himself in a debate with Clark.

Video

Notice how Card like all the rest of the Repubicans that have been on the tube lately, will not answer direct questions. Campbell Brown is irritated. Not unlike Tom Brokaw earlier.

I wish I could say I was surprised, but pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturing is very big business in New Jersey and when those companies say jump, elected officials say "How high?" Wouldn't it be nice if they put as much thought into the health and safety of their constituents?

The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday that four New Jersey congressmen and its own former commissioner unduly influenced the process that led to its decision last year to approve a patch for injured knees, an approval it is now revisiting.

The agency’s scientific reviewers repeatedly and unanimously over many years decided that the device, known as Menaflex and manufactured by ReGen Biologics Inc., was unsafe because the device often failed, forcing patients to get another operation.

But after receiving what an F.D.A. report described as “extreme,” “unusual” and persistent pressure from four Democrats from New Jersey — Senators Robert Menendez and Frank R. Lautenberg and Representatives Frank Pallone Jr. and Steven R. Rothman — agency managers overruled the scientists and approved the device for sale in December.

All four legislators made their inquiries within a few months of receiving significant campaign contributions from ReGen, which is based in New Jersey, but all said they had acted appropriately and were not influenced by the money. Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach, the former drug agency’s commissioner, said he had acted properly.

The agency has never before publicly questioned the process behind one of its approvals, never admitted that a regulatory decision was influenced by politics, and never accused a former commissioner of questionable conduct.

“The message here is that there were problems with the integrity of F.D.A.’s decision-making process that have solutions,” Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, the agency’s principal deputy commissioner, said in a conference call with reporters.

Stories like this one deserve quite a bit more attention than they generally receive.

Security practices at the White House are dangerously inadequate say current and former employees of the security office there, according to a letter sent today from the House Oversight Committee to former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, asking that he cooperate with the committee’s investigation into the alleged security lapses.

“These security officials described a systemic breakdown in security procedures at the White House,” wrote the chairman of the committee, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

Among the lapses cited by the security officers, who spoke to the committee anonymously, are multiple instances of breaches being reported to the security office that were ignored and never investigated. Several of those instances allegedly involved the mishandling of SCI (Sensitive Compartmentalized Information), which is the highest level of classified information.

The White House’s treatment of classified materials ranges from clumsy to negligent to near-criminal. And we’re not just talking about the obvious scandals such as outing a covert CIA operative for partisan purposes ; there’s more of a casual disregard for keeping secrets secure. (In one instance, for example, a White House official reportedly left highly classified materials in a hotel room during a foreign trip with Bush. In another, the deputy director of the White House Security Office allegedly put classified material on an unsecured computer.)

The irony, of course, is that the Bush gang appears to value secrecy above almost anything else, but when tasked with actually keeping national security materials under wraps, carelessness rules the day.

Andrew Card is out

Joshua B. Bolten is in. That should change everything. Is anyone surprised that President Bush chose someone close to him? It wasn't the "outsider" that we kept hearing about.

Craig Crawford writes: "Five reasons why Andrew Card’s departure doesn't help President Bush"

TMV has an analysis from both sides of the aisle and a collection of different news services...

Inspired by Steve's piece in the Huffington Post, I posted the video from this exchange.

Download | play -WMP

Download | play -QT

Steve gets it right: "I wish you could have seen Bob Schieffer's face as he came back from commercial break to his next guest, Senator Joe Biden, who he then took up this issue with. Bob Schieffer said to Joe Biden (I'm paraphrasing here...I'll post the transcript when it's available) "You know, everyone in The White House has these BlackBerrys. And you have to wonder what sort of message Andrew Card emailed at 8pm to the other people in The White House...what sort of documents could have been shredded in those 12 hours."

Why can't the lot of them?

The Washington Post is following the lead on the admission by Alberto that he told Andrew Card immediately after learning that the Justice Department had launched a criminal investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity...

Again I ask... why can't Scotty talk about the case now? Did Gonzales stray away from the company line of no comment?

brad blog

Congressional Dems Request 'Investigation' Investigation on '12-Hour Gap' and '67-Day Gap'!
(Includes Copy of Original CIA Letter)

Many are now speaking of the '12-Hour Gap' between the time White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez was told by the Department of Justice about the official investigation into the unprecedented outting of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame and the time he "officially" notified the White House to preserve all documents relating to the investigation. (He told Chief of Staff, Andrew Card the night before.) Yesterday it was revealed that, in fact, the White House likely had a full '3-and-a-Half Day Headsup' since MSNBC reported on the matter a full 84 hours before Gonzalez gave "official" notice to the White House.

But Tuesday, however, we were reminded, vis a vis a letter from several Judiciary Committee Democrats, that the DoJ had actually spent a total of 67 days before answering the official CIA request for an investigation into the matter!...Read on...

Is Terrorism Against White People More Newsworthy?   Blogenlust

In terms of newsworthiness, is terrorism against white people really more important than terrorism against people in the Middle East?

It's not a silly question, because Soledad O'Brien is currently reporting from London, asking questions of Londoners like, "How do you feel?", "How has your life changed?", and "What does this mean for us?"

She's not, of course, asking the same questions of the people of Sharm al-Sheikh or
Yesterday it was revealed that, in fact, the White House likely had a full '3-and-a-Half Day Headsup' since MSNBC reported on the matter a full 84 hours before Gonzalez gave "official" notice to the White House.

But Tuesday, however, we were reminded, vis a vis a letter from several Judiciary Committee Democrats, that the DoJ had actually spent a total of 67 days before answering the official CIA request for an investigation into the matter!...Read on...