Today’s edition of quick hits.
* The Senate voted 94 to 2 today to undo the Patriot Act provision that allows the Bush administration to unilaterally fill U.S. attorney vacancies. As the AP explained, “The bill, which has yet to be considered in the House, would set a 120-day deadline for the administration to appoint an interim prosecutor. If the interim appointment is not confirmed by the Senate in that time, a permanent replacement would be named by a federal district judge.” The two who voted against the legislation, for reasons that escape me, were Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.).
* Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, the chief of the National Institutes of Health, told lawmakers Monday that lifting Bush’s ban on publicly-financed stem-cell research would better serve science and the nation. “It is clear today that American science will be better served — the nation will be better served — if we allow our scientists to have access to more cell lines,” Dr. Zerhouni told two members of the Senate health appropriations subcommittee during a hearing on the NIH’s proposed 2008 budget. Allowing the ban to remain in place, he said, leaves his agency fighting “with one hand tied behind our back.” How soon until Zerhouni is fired?
* Adjusted for inflation, defense spending is now higher than at any point since World War II. The “$630 billion provided for the military this year exceeds the highest annual amounts during the Reagan-era defense buildup, the Vietnam War and the Korean War.”
* Bush’s brief comments yesterday marking the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq were so weak, I hardly found them worth mentioning. Slate’s Fred Kaplan, however, went into excellent detail, describing just how awful and dishonest the short speech really was.
* There’s a surprisingly lively debate underway between the White House and Ken Hutcherson, a furiously anti-gay pastor at Antioch Bible Church near Seattle. Hutcherson claims that Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives named him Special Envoy for Adoptions, Family Values, Religious Freedom, and Medical Relief. The White House denies it. Hutcherson claims to have proof. It’s all very odd.
* According to the Justice Department’s inspector general, the “FBI engaged in widespread and serious misuse of its authority in illegally gathering telephone, e-mail and financial records of Americans and foreigners while hunting terrorists.” Glenn Fine, the internal watchdog who revealed the data-gathering abuses in a 130-page report last week, told lawmakers, “It really was unacceptable and inexcusable what happened here.”
* Suicide attacks, once uncommon in post-Taliban Afghanistan, sextupled since 2004, from 25 to 150.
* Cal Thomas complained today over the weekend that questions surrounding the Bush administration’s firing of eight U.S. attorneys “didn’t surface in October [2006]” because “the left in the media — but I repeat myself — had enough scandal going with Mark Foley and a bunch of other stuff, they didn’t need this.” Note to Cal: the purge didn’t happen until December, which comes after October.
* Bush at a White House ceremony yesterday honoring the University of Florida’s national championship football team: “Instead of, like, discouraging them that they got the bad deal when it came to the schedule, all that did was cause them to play harder. And it put them in pretty good stead going into the championship game [against Ohio State]. Like you might remember, all the pre-game polls said you couldn’t win. So much for polls.” As Jason Zengerle joked, “Bush went on to say that he was going to spend the rest of his presidency taking things one game at a time and proving the BCS voters wrong.”
* I appreciate and respect Michael Kinsley’s contrarian ways, but his piece on the purge scandal was widely off the mark. Kevin Drum described it as “beyond maddening, as if Kinsley is deliberately trying to misunderstand what’s going on here.”
* As the war enters its fifth year, fewer and fewer journalists at major news outlets are going to be in Iraq as our eyes and ears. Accurate and comprehensive coverage will no doubt suffer.
* And finally, Hillary Clinton responded to the “Big Sister” ad today, saying, “I haven’t seen it but I’m pleased that it seems to be taking attention away from what used to be on YouTube and getting a lot of hits, namely me singing “The Star Spangled Banner.” Everybody in the world now knows I can’t carry a tune.” Asked if the video should be removed, Clinton said she didn’t have an opinion, but added, “I might quibble a little bit about the content but if we get more people, especially young people, thinking about politics, I’m happy about that.”
Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.