“Sen. Conrad Burns gazed at a debate audience and asked if anyone could guess who was blocking efforts in Washington to control health-care costs. ‘Abramoff?’ shouted a heckler.” Taking a look at the Montana Senate Race, the Post argues that the Casino Jack scandals still aren’t making much of a dent in the midterm elections. Nevertheless, the case continues to play out in official Washington: After agreeing to plead guilty last Friday to corruption charges stemming from the Abramoff investigation, the GOP’s Bob Ney — recently the recipient of a Republican standing O for his flouting of the law — is forced to give up his House chairmanships. Ney hasn’t given up his seat yet, but either way, he’s out in November.
Category: Politics (2005-2006)
A Heart bigger than Texas.
“We’ve been told that the interests of the South and the Southwest are not the same interests as the North and the Northeast. They pit one group against the other. They’ve divided this country and in our isolation we think government isn’t gonna help us, and we’re alone in our feelings. We feel forgotten. Well, the fact is that we are not an isolated piece of their puzzle. We are one nation. We are the United States of America.” Governor Ann Richards, 1933-2006.
Arlen’s Tap Dance.
“Despite the Administration’s stonewalling, the Judiciary Committee, which knows even less about the program than the Intelligence Committee, today approved legislation that would not only legalize a program that the Committee does not understand but would also completely gut the FISA law…Expanding executive power at the request of a president who has shown such deep disrespect for the rule of law is exactly the wrong thing to do.” Checks and balances? Bah, humbug. At Dubya’s mandate — and despite Democratic attempts to limit the damage — Spineless Specter and the GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee approve legislation legalizing the NSA’s warrantless wiretap program. As the ACLU summed it up: “Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee acted as a rubber stamp for the administration’s abuse of power.” For shame.
Novak speaks Plamely.
“First, Armitage did not, as he now indicates, merely pass on something he had heard and that he ‘thought’ might be so. Rather, he identified to me the CIA division where Mrs. Wilson worked, and said flatly that she recommended the mission to Niger by her husband, former Amb. Joseph Wilson.” In his column this week, DoL Robert Novak finally comes clean about the Plamegate leak, and his version suggests leaker Richard Armitage knew exactly what he was doing when he told Novak about Valerie Plame.
Chafee Safe?
In somewhat unhappy news for prospects of a Senate takeover in November, GOP moderate Lincoln Chafee withstands a primary challenge from his right, in the form of Cranston mayor Steve Laffey, 54-46%. Still, Democrat (and son of Chafee’s father’s roommate at Yale) Sheldon Whitehouse is effectively tied with Chafee in recent polls, so the damage from a bruising primary race may still pay dividends for the Dems.
The Shame of Kazakhstan.
Now, in our country there is problem. Despite being British, Sasha Baron Cohen, a.k.a. Borat, sparks a mild diplomatic situation between the US and Kazakhstan, one that the administration will try to alleviate with White House talks. To be honest, I think I’d prefer Borat representing my country over Dubya.
Fear Factor.
“The power of his rhetoric is in marked decline…We are losing a war right now, and there is no way to get around that.” Five years after the 9/11 attacks, Dubya and the GOP are once again in full “terror, terror, terror, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11” mode. But, really, what can you expect? Other than going virulently negative, it’s the only trick these jokers have left. If we let them pull it again this November, shame on us.
Evildoers in Utah?
“Blind faith in bad leaders is not patriotism. A patriot does not tell people who are intensely concerned about their country to just sit down and be quiet; to refrain from speaking out in the name of politeness or for the sake of being a good host; to show slavish, blind obedience and deference to a dishonest, war-mongering, human-rights-violating president.” By way of Looka, even the reddest state in the nation is turning blue: Check out this fiery speech given last week by Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson.
Al Liars.
“‘Saddam only expressed negative sentiments about bin Laden,’ the former Iraqi foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, told the Federal Bureau of Investigation when he was asked about Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda’s leader…’He specified that if he wanted to cooperate with the enemies of the U.S., he would have allied with North Korea or China,’ says a passage in the nearly 400-page report.” A new Senate intelligence report confirms what has become patently obvious: There was no link between Iraq and Al Qaeda before the war. “Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., a member of the committee, said the long-awaited report was ‘a devastating indictment of the Bush-Cheney administration’s unrelenting, misleading and deceptive attempts’ to link Saddam to al-Qaida.”
Armitage Wide Open.
“‘I feel terrible,’ Armitage said. ‘Every day, I think, I let down the president. I let down the secretary of state. I let down my department, my family, and I also let down Mr. and Mrs. Wilson.‘” Speaking of coming clean, Dick Armitage admits he was the Plame leaker (after having been outed by Mike Isikoff and David Corn last week.)