Tuesday’s political round-up

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers: * In Tennessee, the latest Rasmussen poll shows Rep. Harold Ford (D) surging against Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker (R), with the Dem now up by five, 48% to 43%. Ford has an edge […]

Frist wants to cut and run from Taliban?

I haven’t the foggiest idea what Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was thinking when he suggested we stop trying to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan, and start trying to legitimize them. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Monday that the Afghan war against Taliban guerrillas can never be won militarily and urged support for […]

Rice, the CIA, and the July 2001 meeting

Yesterday, we talked about a meeting then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice had, on July 10, 2001, with then-CIA Director George J. Tenet and his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black. According to the CIA officials, Tenet and Black warned Rice that al Qaeda was planning an attack on American interests, possibly in the United States itself, […]

GOP leaders were worried about being called homophobic?

We’ve seen some odd responses to the Mark Foley sex scandal the last few days, but one of the most common is also the most bizarre. I believe it was Newt Gingrich who got the ball rolling on Sunday with this startling observation: “Well, you could have second thoughts about it, but I think had […]

Hastert pushed to resign over response to Foley sex scandal

The [tag]Washington Times[/tag] exists, by its own admission, to promote a conservative spin on the news. As far as objectivity is concerned, the Times is slightly to the right of Fox News — and it’s proud of it. And as of today, the paper’s far-right editorial believes House Speaker [tag]Dennis Hastert[/tag] needs to resign his […]

Mini-report — Foley-free edition

Let’s see, seven stand-alone posts in one day on the Foley scandal. How about some other, non-Foley stories that I didn’t get to today? * Wal-Mart: always awful business practices. Always. * Markos Moulitsas (you know, Kos) makes a compelling argument for “The Case for the Libertarian Democrat.” * I’m amazed reporters are still getting […]

Hastert speaks

House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and his leadership team have been working through the weekend to deal with the Foley scandal The result was a brief speech to reporters this afternoon. Hastert, not surprisingly, did not respond to questions from reporters. Most of the comments were fairly predictable, but we are starting to see an […]

‘Foley’s downfall has pretty nearly decapitated the leadership of the House GOP’

Josh Marshall takes a step back from the Foley scandal to consider the big picture, particularly as it relates to the House GOP leadership. [I]n the final weeks before an election it’s critical for each side’s leaders to work together seamlessly. And what do you think the Hastert-Reynolds relationship is like at the moment? Or […]

The most important meeting we never heard of

Last week, the New York Daily News highlighted what appeared to be one of the most important revelations in [tag]Bob Woodward[/tag]’s new book, “[tag]State of Denial[/tag].” As the paper noted, on July 10, 2001, almost exactly two months before 9/11, CIA Director George Tenet and his counterterrorism head Cofer Black sought an urgent meeting with […]

Where was the FBI?

Nearly all of the questions about neglect in the Mark Foley scandal relate to the House GOP leadership and what some are calling The Foley Five — House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), and Reps. Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.), John Shimkus (R-Ill.), and Rodney Alexander (R-La.) — all of whom were […]