Today’s edition of quick hits.
* The White House announced this afternoon that the president will veto funding for the war in Iraq in about a half an hour, and will then make a televised announcement about the veto at 6:10pm (eastern).
* The Bush gang has been complaining bitterly the last few days that congressional Dems intentionally sent the president the funding bill on the fourth anniversary of the infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech. This morning, Dana Perino accused Dems of engaging in a “trumped-up political stunt.” As Tim Grieve noted, a short while later, the president “made a high-visibility appearance at the U.S. Central Command.”
* Here’s a jaw-dropper, by way of reader G.D.: “When the Army Corps of Engineers solicited bids for drainage pumps for New Orleans, it copied the specifications — typos and all — from the catalog of the manufacturer that ultimately won the $32 million contract, a review of documents by The Associated Press found. The pumps, supplied by Moving Water Industries Corp. of Deerfield Beach, Fla., and installed at canals before the start of the 2006 hurricane season, proved to be defective, as the AP reported in March.” The company was Jeb Bush’s employer before he became governor or Florida.
* Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) in 2002: “Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction — I believe including nuclear…. I for one am not willing to wait for that to happen.” Inhofe yesterday: “The whole idea of weapons of mass destruction was never the issue, yet they keep trying to bring this up…. The media made that the issue.”
* Remember how much fun we had watching Attorney General Alberto Gonzales appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee? We’re less than two weeks away from the sequel — Gonzales will appear before the House Judiciary Committee on May 10. Paul Kiel notes some of the questions that have come up between the two hearings.
* I have a bad feeling about this: “The News Corporation, owner of the Fox News Channel and The New York Post, has made an unsolicited $5 billion takeover bid for Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones confirmed today that it had received the offer but said only that the Bancroft family, which controls the company, was evaluating the bid.”
* The reports of al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri’s death may have been greatly exaggerated.
* ARMPAC, we hardly knew you: “The political action committee for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) was quietly closed last week after a decade-long run as one of the most influential – and infamous – PACs run by members of Congress. With a final $1,400 payment to the Federal Election Commission last month settling an audit dispute, Americans for a Republican Majority then filed its termination papers with the commission April 24. Thus ends one more chapter in the storied political rise and fall of DeLay.”
* Condoleezza Rice told Barack Obama that we’ll know “over the next two or three months” whether the president’s escalation plan is going to work. That was three months ago.
* Media Matters: “On his radio program, Glenn Beck stated that Al Gore is using ‘the same tactic’ in his efforts to fight global warming that Adolf Hitler used to vilify Jews in Nazi Germany, but Beck said that Gore’s ‘goal is different. The goal is globalization. The goal is global carbon tax. The goal is the United Nations running the world. That is the goal.'” Why does the media give megaphones to crazy people?
* Tenet’s keeping his Presidential Medal of Freedom.
* The idea was to use a human chain to spell out letters, such as I-M-P-E-A-C-H, even including an exclamation point. The plan fizzled in DC, but as Carpetbagger regular Curmudgeon noted, they had a lot more success in San Francisco.
* The House Judiciary Committee approved a subpoena for former Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who had his own list ranking then-US Attorneys, which varied widely from Kyle Sampson’s list. Should be interesting.
* Nico has a great reminder from 1999, when candidate George W. Bush said it’s incumbent upon a president “to lay out a timetable as to how long [troops] will be involved and when they will be withdrawn” from a military conflict.
* And finally, a housekeeping note. Server trouble knocked the site offline for a couple of hours this afternoon, leading to an abbreviated posting schedule. Readers should know that a) I’m sorry for the inconvenience; b) server troubles lead me to tear what’s left of my hair out; and c) we’re working on the situation. Thanks for your patience.
Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.