Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said at a Capitol Hill news conference today that Bush’s plan to withdraw 30,000 U.S. troops home by next summer is “unacceptable.” He added that the White House approach “is neither a drawdown or a change in mission that we need. His plan is just more of the same.”
* Reid, to his enormous credit, was just as forceful today in response to rumors about Bush’s pick for the new Attorney General. “Ted Olson will not be confirmed,” Reid said in a written statement. “I intend to do everything I can to prevent him from being confirmed as the next attorney general.”
* Never mind that policy about not negotiating with terrorists: “U.S. diplomats and military officers have been in talks with members of the armed movement loyal to Muqtada Sadr, a sharp reversal of policy and a grudging recognition that the radical Shiite cleric holds a dominant position in much of Baghdad and other parts of Iraq. The secret dialogue has been going on since at least early 2006, but appeared to yield a tangible result only in the last week — with relative calm in an area of west Baghdad that has been among the capital’s most dangerous sections.”
* TNR explained today’s developments in East Asia nicely: “A major world leader — the aggressively nationalistic spoiled scion of a famous political family, who has thrown his own ruling party into disarray and whose approval ratings have dipped below 30 percent amid accusations of corruption and after presiding over a cabinet full of embarrassingly incompetent hacks — has finally decided to resign today. No, not that one.”
* Washington Times: “Democratic congressional leaders and the party’s presidential candidates yesterday refused to repudiate a liberal group’s ad questioning Gen. David H. Petraeus’ character. Capitol Hill Democrats rejected a call for votes in both chambers to condemn the attack newspaper ad, run by MoveOn.org, saying Republicans are trying to take attention off what they call the president’s failed Iraq policy.”
* ABC: “Despite six years of promises, U.S. officials say Saudi Arabia continues to look the other way at wealthy individuals identified as sending millions of dollars to al Qaeda. ‘If I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia,’ Stuart Levey, the under secretary of the Treasury in charge of tracking terror financing, told ABC News.”
* Rush Limbaugh questions Rep. Tom Lantos’ (R-Calif.) experience on matters of war. Steve M. explains why Rush Limbaugh is a disgrace.
* Constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky was poised to become the new dean of the UC Irvine law school. Today, Chemerinsky was fired because the school decided it didn’t want a liberal. Seriously.
* Gen. Petraeus insisted in his congressional testimony that the U.S. was not providing arms to Sunni militias in al-Anbar. Major General Benjamin Mixon, commander of U.S. troops in northern Iraq, said otherwise.
* If you happen to work for Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and haven’t updated your resume lately, now might be a good time — his corruption scandal keeps getting worse.
* Sen. David Vitter’s (R-La.) sex scandal has managed to become even more unseemly, with another prostitute having entered the mix. Apparently, because the prostitute is a woman, the Senate Republican caucus does not care.
* White House calendars apparently don’t include Rosh Hashanah, since the Bush gang sent out Bush’s official Rosh Hashanah greetings way too early.
* VoteVets responds to Petraeus’ “I don’t know” gaffe. Nice video — and quick turn-around.
* CNN: “Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf — a key U.S. ally — is less popular in his own country than al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to a poll of Pakistanis conducted last month by an anti-terrorism organization.”
* Peter Keating: “You can tell a lot about a product by the way it’s sold, and the Bush administration has hawked Medicare’s prescription-drug benefit — ‘Part D’ — almost as honestly as it rolled out the Iraq war. The results are going to start slamming millions of seniors right here, right now, in the fall of 2007.” (thanks to reader B.C.)
* Just like old times — the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, at Republicans’ instance, is going to be investigating Bill Clinton’s White House again. Seriously.
* And finally, good news out of the Keystone State: “The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has taken steps to suspend the law license of I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby Jr., a former White House aide convicted in March of lying and obstructing justice in a probe into the leak of a CIA operative’s identity.” He is, oddly enough, the only member of the Bush gang to face any consequences at all for his actions.
Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.