“‘What Democrats want to do is gin up their turnout in the suburbs and divide Republicans, and right now they may do that’ said Jennifer E. Duffy, who tracks Senate races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. ‘This is the first real wedge issue Democrats have had with Republicans.‘” According to the NYT, congressional Dems think they may have a winner in November with the stem cell issue. And, also in election news, polls suggest the once-highly vulnerable Abramoff flunky Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) may be shedding the taint of Casino Jack, while potentially beatable Sen. Mike DeWine (R-OH) looks to do the same with Donald Rumsfeld.
Category: The Senate
Whistle Blown.
“[Y]ou have somebody being fired from the CIA for allegedly telling the truth, and you have no one fired from the White House for revealing a CIA agent in order to support a lie. That underscores what’s really wrong in Washington, D.C.” Following the recent dismissal of CIA historian and Africa specialist Mary McCarthy for telling the Post about our secret gulags, several Dems, including John Kerry and Rep. Jane Harman, question the Dubya double standard regarding leaks. Update: Was it not McCarthy after all?
Two out of Three Ain’t Bad.
Further dispatches from the GOP freefall: As the Republican Congress desperately tries to look busy, that bastion of the liberal media FOX News puts Dubya’s approval rating at a new low — 33%.
Breaking News: Rain is wet.
Sit down before you read this one, folks. In the well-duh dept., the Post front-pages the following story today: “Anger at Bush May Hurt GOP at Polls.” Really? Who woulda thunk it? Next you’ll be telling me that Santorum might be going down too.
Wishful thinking dept.?
“The Bull Moose has temporarily turned into a performing elephant. But the Moose will be back — around March 2008, if everything goes according to plan.” As much of the press hammers John McCain for his blatant re-positioning maneuvers of late, Slate throws a lovefest of sorts for the mythical maverick today, with Jacob Weisberg arguing he’s really a TR progressive and John Dickerson promoting him as the happy crusader. I’ve used this line before, but it fits to a tee. Given McCain’s frequent bouts of water-carrying for the Dubya administration, my view of the Senator’s vaunted independence — until proven wrong — is the same as Sen. George Norris’ take on his progressive colleague William Borah, who indulged a similar maverick reputation back in the teens, twenties, and thirties: He only “shoots until he sees the whites of their eyes.”
If It’s Sunday, Arlen’s Angry.
“I think that there has to be a detailed explanation precisely as to what Vice President Cheney did, what the president said to him, and an explanation from the president as to what he said so that it can be evaluated.” In keeping with a recent pattern of talking tough on the Sunday shows (no doubt to impress his independent-minded Pennsylvania constituents) while pretty much folding like an accordion in Senate committee, Arlen Specter says he want answers from Bush and Cheney regarding the recent Libby leak disclosure. Update: Dubya responds.
Twilight of the Right?
In somewhat related news, the administration’s freefall in the polls continues, with even conservatives now admitting that Dubya is quacking like a lame duck. Meanwhile, some congressional Republicans begin to hear strains of 1994 in their own corruption and excess. And, with the Christian Coalition also nearing the End of (its) Days to boot, one has to wonder: Could we Dems ask for a more favorable electoral terrain against the Dubya-DeLay GOP heading into this November? And when are our party leaders going to rise to this opportunity and start offering a vision of leadership the American people can get behind?
Five and In.
The Senate reaches a compromise on immigration reform that splits the middle between the Frist-Tancredo hardliners and the Kennedy-McCain moderates. “Under the agreement, the Senate would allow undocumented workers a path to lawful employment and citizenship if they could prove — through work stubs, utility bills or other documents — that they have been in the country for five years. To attain citizenship, those immigrants would have to pay a $2,000 penalty, back taxes, learn English, undergo a criminal background check and remain working for 11 years.” But critics argue that the five-year distinction is a hard one to determine or enforce, and has been since it was first put into law in 1986. Update: Things fall apart.
Topic of Cancer.
“‘We know the president broke the law,’ Leahy said. ‘Now we need to know why.'” With the Dems — except for Feingold and Leahy — AWOL yet again, the Senate Judiciary Committee debates Feingold’s censure resolution and hears testimony from former Nixon counsel John Dean, who is back before Congress for the first time since Watergate. Said Feingold at one point: “If you want the words ‘bad faith’ in [the censure resolution], let’s put them right in, because that’s exactly what we have here…The lawbreaking is shocking in itself, but the defiant way that the president has persisted in defending his actions with specious legal arguments and misleading statements is part of what led me to conclude that censure is a necessary step.” Said the rest of the committee Dems (Kennedy, Biden, Kohl, Feinstein, Schumer, Durbin): Nothing.
Same Old Senate for Sale.
“I don’t know,’ said Senator Mike DeWine, Republican of Ohio…’People are not really talking to me directly about lobbying. I think they’re concerned about some of the, quote, scandal, but I don’t have anybody come up to me and say there’s a lobbying problem. It doesn’t get that specific.‘” As such, one day after voting down an independent ethics office 67-30, the Senate passes a watered-down “lobbying reform” bill 90-8 that, for all intent and purposes. seems to be merely cosmetic. “The Senate measure toughens disclosure requirements for lobbyists and requires lawmakers to obtain advance approval for the private trips that were a central feature of the Abramoff scandal. But it does not rein in lawmakers’ use of corporate jets, and it fell far short of the sweeping changes, including a ban on privately financed travel, that some lawmakers advocated in January…’It’s very, very weak,’ said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona.“
Five Republicans and only three measly Democrats voted against the phantom reform bill: McCain, Feingold, Kerry, Graham, DeMint, Inhofe, and the “unlikely duo” of Obama and Coburn. (The West Virginia Dem delegation — Byrd and Rockefeller — abstained.) Still, “Mr. McCain predicted that there would be more indictments growing out of the investigation into political corruption, and said that such a development would lead Congress to revisit the issue again.“