Today’s edition of quick hits.<\/p>\n
* A year ago, in honor of President’s Day, former Gannett chief and USA Today founder Al Neuharth rejected the idea that Bush was the worst president of all time. Today, he changed his mind<\/a>. “I was wrong. This is my mea culpa. Not only has Bush cracked that list, but he is planted firmly at the top,” Neuharth said. (By “the top,” he meant the very worst.)<\/p>\n * Perhaps today’s most frustrating news item was this WaPo piece<\/a> about the Pentagon’s bureaucracy limiting doctors’ access to important medical files — and, in the process, undermining treatment of seriously injured veterans. Read it.<\/p>\n * Last month was by far the hottest January<\/a> recorded for the planet since climate scientists started keeping track in 1880.<\/p>\n * Sen. Barack Obama this week endorsed<\/a> Sen. Russ Feingold’s legislation overhauling the public financing of presidential elections. Good for him.<\/p>\n * To help appreciate just how far Joe Lieberman has gone, I wanted to note that religious right leader Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, has a new book out called, “The Divided States of America?” Lieberman wrote the book’s foreword<\/a>.<\/p>\n * Speaking of Lieberman, the Connecticut senator was on the floor today, warning that Congress may be inviting a “constitutional crisis” — which could necessitate Supreme Court intervention — if lawmakers try to set limits on Bush’s ability to screw up the war. He sounded pretty worked up<\/a> about it.<\/p>\n * David Broder’s column about a possible Bush “comeback” generated plenty of discussion today, including a pretty thorough takedown by Salon’s Glenn Greenwald. Broder responded<\/a> to some of the complaints in an online Washington Post chat this afternoon.<\/p>\n * What, exactly, is the Quds Force — the paramilitary wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) — doing in Iraq? Brad Plumer has some compelling thoughts<\/a> on the subject. * I don’t want to say that Bush’s new North Korea deal is just like the much-maligned Clinton deal of a decade ago … exactly, wait, that’s exactly what I want to say<\/a>.<\/p>\n * Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) has co-sponsored<\/a> his first piece of legislation since he suffered a brain hemorrhage in December. As the AP explained, Johnson, who is reportedly beginning to work from his hospital room, “signed on to a bill that would pay farmers for losses due to drought and other disasters. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., is also a co-sponsor.”<\/p>\n * Outgoing Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker confirmed<\/a> yesterday what a lot of us have been worried about: a troop escalation in Iraq “represents only the ‘tip of the iceberg’ and will potentially require thousands of additional support troops and trainers, as well as equipment — further eroding the Army’s readiness to respond to other world contingencies.”<\/p>\n * Sign of the Apocalypse: Desperate Housewives dolls<\/a>.<\/p>\n * He still has a problem with the tubes: A bill introduced by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) would block social networking programs<\/a> and other popular websites from computers at public libraries and computers.<\/p>\n * I’ve been encouraged by the House Dem leadership since the start of the 110th, but I have to admit, the idea of putting Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) on the House Homeland Security Committee<\/a> strikes me as a bad idea.<\/p>\n
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\n* I don’t expect Bush to understand much about physics, but he doesn’t seem to understand<\/a> what a “vacuum” is.<\/p>\n