April 30, 2007
George Tenet: Bush’s First Mistake (John Feehery)
After watching George Tenet being interviewed by Scott Pelley last night on “60 Minutes,” one thing became clear to me: President Bush should have put his own guy at the CIA at the beginning of his first term.
Tenet seems like he was passionate about his job. He truly wanted to protect the nation from terrorism. Of that, I have no doubt. But let’s face it. He was Clinton’s guy, and he presided over the destruction of the CIA as a fully functioning intelligence agency while he served President Clinton. He should not have stayed on with President Bush, if for no other reason than he was the choice of the president who had the lowest regard for the intelligence community in our nation’s history.
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What's This Fred Thompson — Readying a Stump Speech? (Karen Hanretty)
Former U.S. Sen. and current "Law & Order" television star Fred Thompson has a blog at the American Enterprise Institute, which politicos should check out every few days. (What I call a "blog" the AEI think tank more high-mindedly refers to as a "short publication.")
With all the chatter of Thompson as the next Reagan (see Sunday's London Telegraph article quoting former Reagan deputy chief of staff Michael Deaver about the man he says "could really make a difference"), it's interesting to see what and how Thompson writes. Is this, perhaps, a future candidate in the midst of designing his stump speech and campaign platform?
If you've got the time today, read the post entitled "The Draft" and see if you think he's drawing an analogy between drafting football players and picking political candidates. > Read More
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What's This 'WInging It' — Maybe Not a Good Idea for Obama (A.B. Stoddard)
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) — as our fellow blogger Dick Morris has pointed out — is lucky to have a foil in Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). And when they stood onstage at South Carolina State University last week, things were looking good for him — he was calm and smiley, while she was pinched in hyper-focus.
But it was Brian Williams's question about a terrorist attack that threw off Obama and gave Clinton the edge with her powerful, punctual and of course prepared "I think a president must move as swiftly as prudent to retaliate" response. It was an excellent answer, and "prudent" is so presidential in that George H.W. Bush way. With Obama struggling to respond later to perfect his terrorism response, during a question about global warming, it was simply advantage Clinton, hands down. It's surprising, too, because it sounds like the kind of question professional campaign staff would have anticipated. > Read More
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What's This Hillary's Boo Birds, Part II (Karen Hanretty)
Reports of jeering aimed at Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) by anti-Iraq war California Democratic Party convention-goers may have been — oh, let's say, overemphasized.
Bill Bradley (not the former presidential candidate), who writes a political blog for Pajamas Media, e-mailed me this morning his firsthand account of Hillary's speech, writing that there were only "a few scattered, very occasional catcalls," which he described as "barely noticeable."
Bradley concludes, "It would be totally impossible to put together a DiFi type ad based on that." Fair enough. Although, with a little digital remastering … > Read More
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What's This Fire Destroys Heart of Capitol Hill (Bill Press)
Enough politics. It doesn’t matter whether you’re liberal or conservative — if you work and/or live on the Hill, you know and love the Eastern Market.
It’s much more than a Metro stop. It’s a gathering place. It’s the biggest and most lively market in the Washington area. Its Market Lunch serves the best pancakes at breakfast, and the best crab cake sandwich for lunch — both well worth waiting in line for. On weekends, it’s the home of the District’s best farmers’ market, craft fair, and flea market.
But, most of all, it’s a unique neighborhood experience. Unlike most Americans, if you live on the Hill, you don’t shop at the supermarket and load up on two weeks’ worth of groceries at a time. You shop fresh every day — at Mel’s poultry stand, Jack’s cheese shop, the Calamaris family’s produce market, Jorge’s deli, or Angie’s fresh flowers. You know every vendor, and they know you. There’s no other place like it. > Read More
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What's This Gun Delusions (Armstrong Williams)
In light of some of the recent reports of police interactions it becomes increasingly apparent that their use of firearms is abysmal. When they have to fire 39 times to hit an innocent 92-year-old woman six times — in the case of Ms. Johnston — or 50 times to kill Sean Bell and 41 times for Amadou Diallo, it draws their accuracy into question. Mind you, police are trained in the use of firearms and dealing with stressful and life-threatening situations. However, given these statistics it seems that their accuracy may be somewhere around 17 percent, which is less than one hit out of five attempts. That’s worse than the worst batting averages in baseball!
Now, I own a gun myself, I’m an active, paying member of the NRA, but in light of these statistics I have to ask myself a question: Am I really able to defend myself with a gun? If the police, who are required to train, can’t hit enemies at close range even when they have to complete target practice at farther ranges as well as exercises in stressful situations, then how could I? Are these guns that we purchase really going to protect us when we’re faced with a real threat? > Read More
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What's This Hillary's California Boo Birds (Karen Hanretty)
The Democratic presidential candidates descended upon the Republican city of San Diego this weekend to stump at the California Democratic Party state convention.
As the state's Republican Party chairman (a San Diego resident) noted, it's been more than a decade since the Dems have held a convention in San Diego, despite its being one of the most beautiful, temperate locations in California. "I suppose they finally found enough rooms among the small number of unionized hotels that labor officials allowed the party to come back to our fair city. Good for them," wrote the GOP chairman in a statement to the media.
The real news to come out of the San Diego convention — if there was any, which usually there isn't at these events — was Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) getting booed by liberal activist members of the CDP for not taking a strong enough stand against the war in Iraq. The lefty bloggers were aghast that she (still) didn't apologize for her vote to authorize the war. But surely Mrs. Clinton and her savvy team knew she risked such obtuse heckling at a convention where signs reading "Out of Iraq! Don't Attack Iran!" were in full display, not just by the granola caucus but by the relatively mundane suburban types as well. > Read More
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What's This April 27, 2007
Chairman Waxman Calls: George Tenet Book Tour Will Be Under Oath! (Brent Budowsky)
Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) has invited George Tenet to testify before his investigations panel in May. Since George Tenet is now beginning a big-money book tour, no doubt he will agree to testify — and the fireworks could be enormous.
A word about Henry Waxman. The chairman is the standout member of the new Congress and is doing first-rate work across the board.
He is handling mulitiple investigations with professionalism and fairness, but is a bulldog who aims for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. > Read More
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What's This Reflections on the First Democratic Debate (Ron Christie)
Don’t know about you, but I didn’t realize that President George W. Bush was on the ballot for the presidency in 2008. My first impression from the debate last night was the shrill, strident tone many of the candidates on the stage took towards the president in general and the war in Iraq in particular. And if I hear “If I had known then what I know now, I would never have voted for the war” one more time, I’m going to go crazy.
First, hindsight is always 20-20. The pandering and apparent soul-searching to appease the far left by former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) was particularly irritating. I was struck by the lack of a coherent message of what any of the candidates would actually do if they were elected president. While all claimed to oppose the war and support “comprehensive border control,” I didn’t hear anything by way of a new plan or idea to move the country forward. Leadership in a time of war requires strength, resolve and convictions; all the Democrats on the stage sounded like they were more interested in appeasing far-left groups like MoveOn.org rather than confronting the real dangers presented by the war on terrorism that the United States is facing. > Read More
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What's This Vintage Rudy Showing His Stripes (A.B. Stoddard)
If Rudy Giuliani has to hide out in New York City, how is his presidential campaign going to make it through the long haul? According to the New York Daily News Rudy gets followed to every campaign stop there by parents and widows of 9/11 firefighters, who hold signs that say things like "Rudy for President? Not in My Son's Name!" and "America's Night Mayor." The group, including union members and FDNY veterans, claim Giuliani failed for years to provide adequate radios to fire departments and that it cost many of their lives on Sept. 11, 2001. As Rudy slips in the back door of the events it can't look good to attendees who walk in the front.
But Rudy snapped at a voter in a New Hampshire town hall meeting this week as well. When one questioner suggested that the war on terror had led to an erosion of civil rights, Giuliani told him he had "an extremely exaggerated presentation of things and you didn't point out the other fact — and that is that we haven't been attacked, and that we've been safe." Marty Capodice, 64, said in reply, "So no rights?" And according to the Daily News, "That's hardly no rights!" was Giuliani's loud response. > Read More
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What's This