Today’s edition of quick hits.
* A pleasant surprise in Venezuela: “Venezuelan voters delivered a stinging defeat to President Hugo Chavez on Sunday, blocking proposed constitutional changes that would have given him political supremacy and accelerated the transformation of this oil-rich country into a socialist state. Hours after the final ballots were cast, the National Electoral Council announced at 1:15 a.m. local time Monday that voters, by a margin of 51 to 49 percent, had rejected 69 reforms to the 1999 constitution. The modifications would have permitted the president to stand for reelection indefinitely, appoint governors to provinces he would create and control Venezuela’s sizable foreign reserves.”
* While Venezuela’s authoritarian was rebuffed over the weekend, Russia’s wasn’t: “President Vladimir Putin secured a convincing personal victory in Russia’s parliamentary election Sunday and with it, his allies say, the “moral authority” he had demanded to maintain political influence in the country after he steps down next year. The pro-Kremlin United Russia party, whose ticket was headed by Putin, won more than 60 percent of the vote, according to exit polls and early returns.”
* Of course, not surprisingly, there are some lingering concerns about the integrity of Russia’s voting process. Go figure.
* How big is the national debt? It grows at a rate of $1 million per minute. Maybe now would be a good time to remind folks that as of 2001, Clinton had us on track to eliminate the national debt entirely by 2010. Instead, the debt now stands at a mind-numbing $9.13 trillion.
* A Wolfowitz comeback? Scary, but true: “Don’t ever say the Bush administration doesn’t take care of its own. Nearly three years after Paul Wolfowitz resigned as deputy Defense secretary and six months after his stormy departure as president of the World Bank — amid allegations that he improperly awarded a raise to his girlfriend — he’s in line to return to public service. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has offered Wolfowitz, a prime architect of the Iraq War, a position as chairman of the International Security Advisory Board, a prestigious State Department panel.”
* How bad was that front-page WaPo article on “rumors” (read: lies) about Obama’s religion? The piece has now drawn fire from the paper’s congressional reporter, media critic, and cartoonist.
* At a certain point, corruption in Iraq stops being a crisis, and becomes an epidemic.
* Larry Craig wants everyone to know that, despite all of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he’s still not gay.
* More importantly, Craig, instead of just slinking away into oblivion, is in Bali this week, doing his part to undermine U.S. efforts to combat global warming.
* It’s a shame Bill O’Reilly doesn’t know what “ironic” means.
* It’s an even bigger shame the National Review’s W. Thomas Smith, Jr. seems to have published news reports from Lebanon that apparently weren’t true.
* Remember those loyalty oaths the Virginia Republican Party announced last week for voters participating in the primaries? The GOP wisely scrapped the idea in the face of widespread criticism. “We have heard the voice of the people,” said John H. Hager, the state party chairman. “It’s a new day, and our job has to be to build the party.”
* I like David Gregory’s aggressive style in the White House press room, but I’ll never understand his irrational hostility towards the netroots.
* TNR has decided to put the Scott Thomas Beauchamp controversy to rest with a piece from Franklin Foer: “[I]n light of the evidence available to us, after months of intensive re-reporting, we cannot be confident that the events in his pieces occurred in exactly the manner that he described them. Without that essential confidence, we cannot stand by these stories.” I’d add, however, that the piece suggests Beauchamp’s accounts and anecdotes may very well be true, but the evidence to support the claims don’t meet the magazine’s standards.
* Did Tom Tancredo hire illegal immigrants to work on his Denver-area McMansion? It sure sounds like it.
* And finally, a nice quote from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on the filibuster-obsessed Senate GOP minority: “In all, Republicans have now blocked the priorities of working Americans by forcing 56 cloture votes — fast approaching the all-time record of 61 — a record that took a full two-year session to reach. Let me repeat — they have already nearly reached the all-time two-year obstruction record in less than one year. That would be like a ballplayer hitting 73 home runs by the all-star break. This isn’t normal obstruction. This is obstruction on steroids.”
Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.