Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-Ga.) died this afternoon after battling cancer and lung disease. The 65-year-old Norwood died at his home in Augusta, Ga., his office said. House members debating the war in Iraq briefly interrupted proceedings for a moment of silence in his honor. My condolences to his family.
* Announcing what is likely to be an anticlimactic end to Scooter Libby’s criminal trial, the defense announced today that Libby won’t testify and Dick Cheney will not be called as a witness. In fact, the defense is likely to rest this week, with closing arguments coming as early as a week from today.
* On a related note, Bob Woodward’s interview with Richard Armitage, during which Plame’s name came up, clearly suggests Condoleezza Rice was weak and powerless in 2003, and that the Bush gang didn’t much care if the infamous “16 words” were false.
* Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, executive director of the CIA until he resigned in May, and defense contractor Brent Wilkes were indicted today as part of the corruption investigation that sent Duke Cunningham to prison. Apparently, the indictment has some juicy tidbits.
* As John Cole explained, John McCain seems a little confused about the Tet Offensive.
* CNN’s Glenn Beck, on his nationally syndicated radio show, showing the kind of fascinating insights that has made him a star, told his audience yesterday that Barack Obama is “very white in many ways…. Gee, can I even say that? Can I even say that without somebody else starting a campaign saying, ‘What does he mean, “He’s very white?” ‘ He is. He’s very white.” Have I mentioned that Good Morning America finds Beck so insightful that he’s going to be a regular contributor?
* While lawmakers debate war policy on the Hill, Americans seem to have largely made up their minds. A new USA Today/Gallup poll finds that six in 10 oppose Bush’s escalation policy, and 63% support a timetable to withdraw all U.S. troops by the end of 2008. As for the Senate’s inability to resolve the debate over the debate, the public (accurately) blames Republicans, 51% to 19%. As for 2008, 7 in 10 say their representative’s vote on the war will affect their vote in the next congressional election; more than four in 10 call it a major factor.
* Tony Snow can’t quite explain what the White House line is on Iran. Today’s briefing was particularly embarrassing.
* Glenn Greenwald takes Glenn Reynolds to task for Reynolds’ stated foreign policy towards Iran: “We should be responding quietly, killing radical mullahs and Iranian atomic scientists.” Reynolds is advocating death squads? Killing scientists? Apprently so.
* Looks like there’s a Martha-Stewart-like controversy brewing with Bush’s Education Department and the Sallie Mae Corporation.
* I’d heard about Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-Calif.) less-than-favorable reputation on a personal level, but even I was surprised to hear him go on the offensive during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing against women whose family members were killed by insurgents in Fallujah in 2004.
* LA Times: “The FBI lost 160 laptops — including at least 10 containing sensitive or classified data and one with names and addresses of agents — sometime from February 2002 to September 2005, according to a report released Monday by the Justice Department. Inspector General Glenn A. Fine also reported that 160 weapons disappeared during the same period.” I feel safer already.
* And finally, be sure to check out NASA Institute for Space Studies chief James Hansen’s latest piece: “It is an uncomfortable inconvenient scientific truth: we cannot pour into the atmosphere all of the fossil fuels that were buried in the ground over millions of years without creating a different planet, without destroying creation, without being miserable failures in our stewardship of the planet we were blessed with….. These are far more than ‘just my opinions as a private citizen.’ They are the urgent and reasoned words of the country’s leading climate scientist. We ignore them at our peril.”
If none of these particular items are of interest, consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.