Today’s edition of quick hits.
* AP: “The Army fell short of its recruiting goal for May, its first significant slip in two years. The active-duty Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force met or surpassed their May targets, although the Army National Guard and Air National Guard fell far short. With an array of special incentives for attracting recruits, the Army managed to recover from a 2005 recruiting slump, but the impact of the Iraq war and the strong domestic economy have made it difficult to attract enlistees. The Army and Marine Corps have suffered the bulk of casualties in Iraq.”
* Did the Pentagon really consider building a “gay bomb,” that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers gay? According to this report from a CBS affiliate in California, it weighed just such a plan in the 1990s, but subsequently rejected it.
* Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) is obviously very confused about the administration’s detainee policy. He told CNN today that “most of our prisoners would love to be in a facility more like Guantanamo and less like the state prisons that people are in in the United States.” Pressed by host Wolf Blitzer to address the fact that “detainees are being held, by and large, without charges, without any evidence,” which is “causing a smear on the U.S. reputation,” Huckabee said it didn’t matter because hypothetically, “if we let somebody out” they could “come and fly an airliner into one of our skyscrapers.” That’s dumb even by the standards of Republican presidential candidates.
* On a related note, Huckabee might consider listening to Colin Powell on this issue: “[E]very morning I pick up a paper and some authoritarian figure, some person somewhere, is using Guantanamo to hide their own misdeeds… [W]e have shaken the belief that the world had in America’s justice system by keeping a place like Guantanamo open… We don’t need it, and it’s causing us far more damage than any good we get for it.”
* And on another related note, Chris Dodd renewed efforts today to close Guantanamo.
* The president likes to talk tough on Sudan in public, but cooperate with Sudan behind the scenes. Juan Cole has more.
* In the latest sign of stability in Iraq’s government, Iraq’s parliament voted today to oust its Speaker, Mahmoud Mashhadani, a day after one of his bodyguards allegedly roughed up another lawmaker.
* Speaking of Bush, the president apparently broke protocol in Rome over the weekend, referring to the pope as “sir,” instead of the expected “Your Holiness.” The remark reportedly drew gasps from the Italian press.
* Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) became the state’s first sitting governor to march in Boston’s gay pride parade and reemphasized that he wanted to keep Massachusetts a state where same-sex couples could marry.
* Dear CNN, Giuliani wasn’t mayor in 1993. Please make a note of it.
* During afternoon broadcasts this year, CNN has devoted 20% of its airtime to the war in Iraq. MSNBC was similar, devoting 18% of its airtime. Fox News? Just 6%.
* You may have heard about a young man who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17 (four years ago). Today, a Georgia judge ordered his release, though prosecutors are appealing the order.
* Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt called Sen. Craig Thomas’s (R-Wyo.) office on Thursday afternoon to request a meeting. Thomas had died four days earlier. The senator’s grief-stricken staffers were not amused.
* And finally, McDonald’s is apparently “lobbying dictionary publishers to change the meaning of the word McJob — or remove it altogether — on the grounds that it denigrates the company’s employees.” I have a cousin who does IT work for the company and he’s explained to me that McDonald’s not only rejects the “McJob” label, but doesn’t even like “fast-food” industry, preferring “quick-service.” What’s in a name?
Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.