Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Remember the Baghdad market John McCain was bragging about? The one that was a model for safety and security in Iraq? Horror struck the same market yesterday: “A newborn baby was one of at least 14 children and adults killed when a suicide bomber detonated a lorry laden with explosives close to a primary school in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk yesterday. The latest massacre of Iraqi children came as 21 Shia market workers were ambushed, bound and shot dead north of the capital. The victims came from the Baghdad market visited the previous day by John McCain.”
* On a far less serious note, Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), who accompanied McCain on his extraordinarily well-protected stroll, told reporters that Shorja — where a suicide bomber killed 88 people in January — is now “like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime.” Apparently, people who work at normal outdoor markets in Indiana don’t see the similarities.
* If you haven’t seen it, be sure to check out this fascinating picture from yesterday’s White House press briefing. It shows Dick Cheney, for no apparent reason, hovering out of sight. What was he doing there? Besides being creepy?
* It looks like the early change to daylight-savings time didn’t have the desired effect: “The early onset of daylight saving time in the USA this year may have been for naught. The move to turn the clocks forward by an hour on March 11 rather than the usual date in early April was mandated by the federal government as an energy-saving effort — but the move appears to have had little effect on power usage.” As my friend R.M. put it, “You mean I’ve been getting up an hour early all this time for nothing?”
* Following up on last week’s revelations about the White House politicizing the General Services Administration, and GSA officials likely violating the Hatch Act, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) pressed the Republican National Committee for emails “that relate to the use of federal agencies and federal resources for partisan political purposes.” (If there’s a Henry Waxman Fan Club, please sign me up.)
* Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino told CNN that congressional Democrats are “thumbing their noses at the troops,” by passing a funding measure that gives the troops everything they need. It’s almost as if the White House were having a competition to see which staffer could appear the stupidest on national television.
* House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) hinted yesterday in a letter to Monica Goodling’s lawyer that Goodling would be brought before the committee to invoke the Fifth publicly unless she were willing to meet privately with committee members to explain her reasoning. Her lawyer not only refused cooperation, he also compared Conyers to Joe McCarthy.
* On a related note, Alberto Gonzales still appears unable to pick up much in the way of support from congressional Republicans, who apparently don’t trust him anymore.
* When it comes to the showdown over war funding, Digby noted that Gene Lyons is thinking outside the box: “If President Bush really thinks he’s holding all the cards in his impending showdown with congressional Democrats over Iraq funding, why bother with a veto? On previous occasions when Congress passed laws Bush found irksome, he’s quietly issued ‘signing statements’ declaring in essence that the president is a law unto himself. Statutes Bush doesn’t like, he vows to ignore. He’s done it scores of times.”
* The NYT had a good editorial about the White House blasting critics as “emotionally” unstable: “President Bush and his advisers have made a lot of ridiculous charges about critics of the war in Iraq: they’re unpatriotic, they want the terrorists to win, they don’t support the troops, to cite just a few. But none of these seem quite as absurd as President Bush’s latest suggestion, that critics of the war whose children are at risk are too ’emotional’ to see things clearly.”
* RH Reality Check: “Using membership dues paid in part by federal tax dollars, the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA) hired the Washington, DC, public relations firm, Creative Response Concepts, best known for the 2004 ‘Swift Boat Veterans’ ads against John Kerry, to launch a public relations effort supporting the failed and unpopular abstinence only education policies.”
* And finally, on NBC’s Nightly News last night, anchor Brian Williams asked Tim Russert if Bush, in threatening to veto an emergency Iraq war supplemental bill that would contain a timeline for troop withdrawal, was making “a calculated bet … that Democrats aren’t really going to vote to leave American soldiers high and dry in the middle of the fight.” There was no mention of Bush leaving soldiers high and dry in the middle of the fight by vetoing the measure that funds the war. Let’s all say it together: what liberal media?
Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.
