Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Reuters: “World powers named Tony Blair as their Middle East peace envoy on Wednesday, handing the outgoing British prime minister a daunting new challenge on a day Israeli forces killed 12 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.” Gordon Brown was officially named the new British Prime Minister this afternoon.
* AP: “The Senate today killed a Republican proposal to require all adult illegal immigrants to return home temporarily in order to qualify for permanent lawful status in this country. Also defeated was a Democratic bid to restrict legal status to those who have been in the United States for four years.”
* One of the criminal charges pending against Tom DeLay was thrown out of court today, but the money laundering charges remain.
* In 2001, Dick Cheney appeared in a White House video in which he said, “It’s really a function of the last 50 years or so that the vice president’s become an important part of the executive branch.”
* Long-time readers may recall a 2005 controversy in which an off-duty state trooper working security for Rick Santorum removed several women from a book signing because they were overheard making negative comments about the senator. The women sued a civil rights lawsuit, which was settled today. The ejected women will get a letter of regret and about $5,000 each.
* It’s incremental progress, but the Defense Department has adopted a new policy towards gays in the military. They still can’t serve openly, but now, the Pentagon will officially encourage those discharged “to continue to serve their nation and national security by putting their abilities to use by way of civilian employment with other Federal agencies, the Department of Defense, or in the private sector, such as with a government contractor.”
* Jonah Goldberg’s new book will now be called, “Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Hegel to Whole Foods.” It used to be called, “Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton.” The poor guy just isn’t very bright.
* Speaking of Goldberg, his appearance on MSNBC last night, in which he explained why he’s a member of “the Dick Cheney Fan Club,” was quite a sight.
* NYT: “A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced the former second-ranking official of the Interior Department to 10 months in prison for lying to a Senate committee about his ties to Jack Abramoff, the crooked lobbyist who is now in prison. The official, J. Steven Griles, in a tearful appeal, asked Judge Ellen S. Huvelle of Federal District Court for leniency. He acknowledged that he had misled Congress on one narrow matter and said that his guilty plea had ruined his livelihood and his reputation.”
* As if it weren’t troublesome enough that ABC is continuing to pay Fred Thompson for his commentaries, ABC continues to distribute them despite glaring errors of fact.
* CREW documents massive Katrina-related failures.
* TPMM: “Ex-Gov. Don Siegelman (D-AL) is again questioning the motives and impartiality of the prosecutors who want to put him away for 30 years. And the prosecutors keep giving him good reason to.”
* A new Pew poll found that majorities in 26 countries now have a less favorable view of the United States than they did in 2002. “[O]pinions of the American people have declined over the past five years in 23 of 33 countries where trends are available.”
* Retired Major General John Batiste, a former division commander in Iraq: “I also believe we cannot attribute all the violence in Iraq to al-Qaeda. There’s a tendency now to lump it all together, and call it al-Qaeda. We have to be very careful with that. This is a very complex region. al-Qaeda is certainly a component. But there’s larger components.”
* Senate Democratic Whip Richard Durbin on Tuesday “urged a Bush-appointed judge to recuse himself from cases involving enemy combatants and requested an explanation about information that might contradict his testimony about the White House’s detainee policy,” AP reports. “It appears that you misled me, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the nation,” the Illinois Democrat “wrote to Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.”
* And finally, in my favorite media item of the day, MSNBC anchor Mika Brzezinski refused, on the air, to lead her broadcast with a Paris Hilton story, overriding her producer. She literally took a lighter to her script, on the air. Take a look.
Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.