Well, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has demonstrated a willingness to shake things up a bit. MSNBC reports, “Pentagon sources are telling NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski that Defense Secretary Gates has replaced Gen. Peter Pace as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with Adm. Mike Mullen. He is currently the Navy’s chief naval officer.” Pace’s recent […]
You’ve got to be kidding me. Republican leaders yesterday threatened a “total shutdown” of Senate business if Democrats keep holding up President Bush’s appointments to the federal bench. “It could cause major meltdown,” Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican, said after Democrats postponed a committee vote on the nomination of Leslie H. Southwick to […]
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: * The WaPo had a front-page item today on a large number of John McCain backers jumping ship to sign up with Fred Thompson lately. For example, John Dowd, McCain’s former personal lawyer […]
The now-infamous K Street Project, created by congressional Republicans to dominate Washington’s powerful lobbying industry, is no more. It started unraveling a bit last year, but the election of a Democratic House and Senate sealed the deal. Roll Call reported yesterday that the “legacy” of the Project, of course, lives on. Democrats aren’t creating their […]
USA Today had an interesting item on a topic that has generated a surprising amount of attention in two separate Republican presidential debates: modern biology. Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister, have been explaining their positions ever since they and Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo first indicated in a […]
It’s not my intention to return, for a third day, to Mitt Romney’s bizarre assertion that IAEA weapons inspectors were not allowed entry into Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, but rather to use the incident as an example of media malpractice. If politics made sense, Romney’s mistake would have been an immediate disqualifier. No one who’s that […]
Proponents of the immigration reform compromise measure working its way through the Senate, as recently as a few days ago, thought they had the momentum. It would be close, but they thought they had the votes to get the Bush-backed bill through the chamber. So much for that idea. The sweeping immigration overhaul endorsed by […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * In an encouraging move, Congress passed its stem-cell legislation, despite an almost-certain veto by the president. The House vote was 247 to 176, which included 37 Republicans joining the vast majority of Dems. That’s a big majority — but it’s 35 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to […]
That abstinence-only education programs are ineffective is not news. The Bush administration and the GOP-led Congress pumped enormous resources (i.e., our money) into these programs, which in turn offered students misleading information and failed to actually change young people’s behavior. The funding was a ridiculous waste of time and money. So, when Dems reclaimed the […]
Almost a month ago, the White House announced that Army Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute had agreed to join Bush’s team as the “war czar,” despite ambiguities about what the job entailed. In some ways, it was a surprising choice — Lute voiced opposition to the president’s surge policy. In other words, the general Bush […]