In the Virginia gubernatorial Democratic primary all that money isn’t helping Terry McAuliffe run away with the nomination — he’s tied with an ex-state legislator and his unfavorable rating (23%) is close to his favorable (30%) rating.
A college hate crime by a student political party! Why isn’t this front page news in every major paper? Ah, it’s the college Democrats this time — defacing crosses. Lovely.
Bill McGurn dares the Democratic Congress to define and outlaw torture now that there is a President who would sign such a bill. But whoops: “That, of course, would mean a vote that would force lawmakers to face up to the real-life consequences of their actions — and submit those actions to the judgment of the American people. And as Mr. Obama is learning, the one thing that frightens Congress more than al Qaeda is accountability.” And it might remove the “huge back door” by which the President has empowered a task force to come up with exceptions to his executive order.
Isn’t there a way to spin the Daschle debacle as something other than a defeat? No, Ben. But the Obama team must certainly appreciate the can-do spirit.
And doesn’t it sound worse, if Robert Gibbs is to be believed, that the White House was just fine pursuing the nomination? Makes it sound like the President didn’t learn a thing from Geithner, Richardson, etc. Michael Ledeen agrees.
Why were Washington insiders so surprised yesterday at Daschle’s retreat? Robert Reich says: “Maybe official Washington, much like most of Wall Street, is still not quite getting it.” Ya’ think?
The President’s heartfelt comments are telling: “Ultimately, I campaigned on changing Washington from the bottom up. I don’t want to send a message to the American people that there are two sets of standards: one for powerful people and one for ordinary people paying their taxes.” But he and the Democrats in the Senate were set on moving forward when the New York Times op-ed helped changed Daschle’s mind? Sounds like two standards were just fine with a lot of people.
No wonder he’s fudging on his no-smoking pledge. I’d smoke too if I had two weeks like his.
Steven Pearlstein: “Obama’s first mistake was to hand the keys of the transition office over to a crew made up almost exclusively of Washington insiders who — surprise! — have largely succeeded in restoring to power their friends from the Clinton administration. Worse still, he has fallen for the tired old Washington ‘wisdom’ that the only way to get anything done is to concentrate even more power in an ever larger White House full of czars and councils and chiefs of staff who ostensibly are there to ‘coordinate’ policy but invariably wind up making it, sapping the departments and agencies of whatever importance and energy and creativity they have left. ” I think Karl Rove said the same thing weeks ago.
I saw this headline — “And the Award for Worst Nominations Goes to. . .” — and thought , well Daschle and Geithner, of course. But it was about the Oscars.
Do you believe in miracles? Norm Coleman might — he gets to consider 4800 more discarded ballots. But were his lawyers smart enough to pick the right ones?
