It’s a pile-on. GOP Senators Trent Lott (who knows how these things work) and Susan Collins join John McCain, Evan Bayh, Bill Kristol, and Chuck Hagel in calling for Rumsfeld’s removal. (Naturally, this White House is responding by hugging him ever closer.) Update: Dubya praises Rummy’s ‘really fine job.’ In comparison to yours, perhaps…)
Category: The Dubya Era
Blame the Children.
Just as Tom Ridge did in his own resignation a few weeks ago, NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe steps down by citing his need to make more money to put his kids through college. “‘It is this [the president’s] very commitment to family that draws me to conclude that I must depart public service,’ O’Keefe wrote. ‘The first of three children will begin college next fall…I owe them the same opportunity my parents provided for me to pursue higher education without the crushing burden of debt thereafter.’” Am I missing something? I know tuition costs have skyrocketed, but is $158,000-a-year really too little money to send a child to college these days? C’mon, now.
The Pieces are Moving.
“The congressional watchdog remains fast asleep, and we intend to wake him up.” As Catkiller Frist and the GOP threaten to go nuclear on the filibuster tip, Senate Dems announce they’ll be holding oversight hearings into matters such as “defense contract abuses” over the coming year. Well, at the very least, this news from our side of the aisle sounds more promising than Harry Reid’s recent thumbs up for Scalia.
Friendly Fire.
Speaking to the Associated Press yesterday, fair-weather maverick John McCain gives Donald Rumsfeld a vote of “no confidence.” As usual, this seems like the type of key reservation McCain should have expressed before last month’s election.
The Power of Myth.
“One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.” At a recent awards dinner, Bill Moyers laments the rise of theocratic “End-of-Days” types under Dubya. Meanwhile, with the White House in their collective pocket, religious fundies now look to spread the word through the states.
Their lyin’ eyes.
Ooh, Porter Goss must be furious. The CIA station chief in Baghdad “has warned that the situation in Iraq is deteriorating and may not rebound any time soon.” According to the classifed cable obtained by the NYT, “the security situation was likely to get worse, including more violence and sectarian clashes, unless there were marked improvements soon on the part of the Iraqi government, in terms of its ability to assert authority and to build the economy.“
Elsewhere, Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) said upon his return from Iraq, “We really need cold, hard facts and honesty. The situation is tough over there…If with 100,000-plus troops over there, we can’t control that 10-mile road [between Baghdad and GWB Airport], it shows what’s happening politically. The people are not as friendly as they were a year ago towards Americans.” Hmm…you’d think a GOP Senator like Chafee, to say nothing of our nation’s intelligence agency, would know better than to aid the terrorists by airing the real facts about what’s going on over there. Can’t they smell the victory?
Two roads diverged.
While new Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid shores up Scalia’s creds for Chief Justice (ugh, the new Congress hasn’t even met yet and he’s already Daschle redux), Howard Dean preps for a big State of the Party speech tomorrow in which he’ll “argue that the Democratic Party should be rebuilt from the grass roots up, that it should be driven by millions of Americans who make small contributions rather than by a handful of moneyed interests, and that the party should focus not just on presidential politics in swing states like Ohio and Florida but also on down-ballot races even in the reddest of states.” If these are my choices, put me on the Dean Machine…the endless protective camouflage song-and-dance perp’ed by Reid this past weekend has to stop. Update: More on Dean’s speech.
Don’t Know Much about History.
All the news that’s fit to print…According to the NYT, “Mr. Bush never lingers at much of anything, but he really doesn’t linger in museums and at historical sites.” Nope, can’t say that’s much of a shocker.
Blinding Us From Science.
Well, I guess this what we get for re-electing a President who thinks “the jury’s still out” on evolution. To help offset exploding Dubya deficits, Congress “has cut the budget for the National Science Foundation, an engine for research in science and technology, just two years after endorsing a plan to double the amount given to the agency.” But, don’t fret: “While cutting the budget of the science foundation, Congress found money for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in Birmingham, the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, bathhouses in Hot Springs, Ark., and hundreds of similar projects.” Yep, priorities, people. (Although granted that cutting-edge cancer research probably costs more than Charlie Daniels’ signed guitar.)
Orange Alert.
Break out the duct tape…Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge joins the ranks of the Dubya-departed, “noting that he feels exhausted from the grueling hours required for the work and that he wants to make more money now that he has two children reaching college age.” Current names being bandied about as replacements include “former Virginia governor James S. Gilmore III, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Frances Fragos Townsend, current White House homeland security adviser.” Given the recent trend to promote Dubya loyalists throughout the cabinet, I’m surprised they haven’t found a new gig for Marc Racicot yet…he’s been the flunky’s flunky.