Today’s edition of quick hits.<\/p>\n
* As if the war in Iraq hasn’t cost us enough, the Bush administration will ask for “another $100 billion<\/a> for military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this year and seek $145 billion for 2008, a senior administration official said Friday. The requests Monday, to accompany President Bush’s budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, would bring the total appropriations for 2007 to about $170 billion, with a slight decline the following year.” Unlike previous years, the Democratic Congress has forced the administration to break down the $145 billion request for next year into detailed form.<\/p>\n * I find it hard to believe a journalist would still appear on air calling John McCain a “maverick,” and yet, there was CNN senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre, telling viewers<\/a> that “maverick Republican John McCain” slammed Gen. George W. Casey’s “past rosy predictions.” First of all, McCain’s not a maverick. Second of all, if anyone’s guilty of making rosy predictions, it’s McCain<\/a>.<\/p>\n * Olbermann did a nice job last night noting the eerie similarities<\/a> between the language Bush used to describe Iraq in 2002 and the language he uses to describe Iran now.<\/p>\n * Hillary Clinton, perhaps anxious to prove her anti-war bona fides, told the audience at today’s DNC winter meeting that the war wouldn’t have happened at all had she been president in 2002. She added<\/a>, “If we in Congress don’t end this war before January 2009, as President, I will.”<\/p>\n * Remember Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.), the anti-Muslim lawmaker? In a surprisingly open-minded gesture, he’s agreed to accept an invitation to attend a Muslim gathering<\/a>. The change of heart occurred after a recent meeting Goode had with a “delegation of religious leaders — including three Muslims.”<\/p>\n * Larry Kudlow offers some objective analysis<\/a> of the president’s visit this week to Wall Street: “This is a guy the mainstream media just loves to kick around. This is a guy still battling it out over Iraqi freedom, but subject to sinking polls. But this is a guy with more character and more faith than almost anyone else in public life.” Remember, CNBC gave Kudlow his own show. * Remember Charles “Cully” Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, who recently criticized (and implicitly threatened) lawyers and law firms who represent terrorism suspects? He resigned today<\/a>. A Defense Department spokesperson said Stimson’s comments, which have been widely rebuked throughout the legal community, “hampered his ability to be effective in this position.”<\/p>\n * Donna Brazile, Al Gore’s campaign manager in 2000, “strongly implied<\/a>” that her former boss could be “waiting to make a dramatic entrance into the 2008 presidential race, especially if he wins an Oscar next month,” according to a report in the Allentown Morning Call. (If he could make up his mind, one way or the other, sometime real soon, that’d be great.)<\/p>\n * Yesterday we learned that the CBO reported that Bush’s escalation vastly understated the number of troops involved with the so-called “surge,” and estimated that the actual number may be 48,000, as opposed to 21,000. White House counselor Dan Bartlett shot back, “We think that there are already enough support troops on the ground there that very few will be required.” CBO anticipated that argument<\/a> and noted why Bartlett is wrong.<\/p>\n * I’ve seen some sycophantic, hagiographic columns before, but Peggy Noonan’s WSJ piece on Reagan<\/a> today was literally embarrassing. You can almost see her dotting her i’s with hearts.<\/p>\n
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\n* Laura Bush was asked this morning whether it was a fair criticism to say the president is “late coming to the table” on global warming. She responded, “Well, I wouldn’t say — I mean, no, not at all. I don’t think that’s fair criticism<\/a>.”<\/p>\n