Thursday Roundup - The Jury Meets The Press

Tim Russert testified yesterday in the Scooter Libby trial, and his defense attorneys have the unenviable job of making him out to be a less than credible witness. He isn't quite Cronkite, but Americans by and large trust Tim Russert, and most journalists talk about his credibility with the kind of fervent admiration usually reserved for mythical creatures.

Russert contradicted Libby's story about who said what when, and the general feeling about Libby's chances is that they aren't good. The hog isn't in the tunnel yet, but he is definitely in the building. Libby has dealt down now to the arguments that either he doesn't remember who told him about Joe Wilson's wife, or that Russert told him, and any earlier rumblings that he heard about Wilson from the Vice President are long from the argument.

I'm not the only one who has noticed Rick Perry's leanings toward some sort of national plan: From the Statesman, Selby complains that Perry's "Republicratic" message has been tough on reporters as of late. He also states the obvious fact that many of his policy initiatives were platform planks for Chris Bell, a friend of the Texas Blue and a progressive hero. The ploy is so thinly veiled it barely obfuscates. If you want to know what Rick Perry is up to, here's a hint - he has taken the reins of his own marketing redesign for sale in a new market. And also, all this talk about the unprecedented use of executive orders as rule by decree coming out of the GOP is hilarious, as Perry has used executive orders several times to advance a conservative agenda, as the list at the bottom of this page shows.

Everyone seems to be having a change of heart these days. The Washington Times is not a paper I would exactly describe as free of bias. However, they seemed to have the lead on this story about the leadership at the Pentagon letting everyone know that a Congressional debate about the best way to proceed in Iraq will not damage troop morale. I don't have to tell you what a shocking development that is.

It isn't often I get to say that Brownsville is taking the lead on technology, but here it is: city managers and leaders are lobbying Austin and the federal government for help in creating a citywide wireless network. They also want to run fiber optic cable throughout the city, arguing that it would close the digital gap between economic classes and encourage businesses to bring jobs there. It doesn't hurt that freshman Democrat Rep. Eddie Lucio III just made it on to Appropriations.

I've talked a bit about utility regulations and legislation in the past, and it seems like the sentiment that something has to be done about runaway utility prices is going to assert itself on the floor of the House. Several bills were introduced this week dealing specifically with caps on energy prices and utility company business activities. Whenever anyone talks about deregulation or privatization, what you should hear is "whatever we're talking about is going to get way more expensive because, allowed to charge you whatever they'd like to, companies will always charge you more." That isn't a moral argument, it is simply how the free market works. When voters get mad about high prices, the deregulated industries are then re-regulated with piecemeal bills that don't really do much to fix the root of the problem, less efficient bills that make government bigger than it actually has to be.

Lastly, Congress just started an Anti-Terrorism Caucus. According to the story, they're going to talk and share books. I sincerely hope one book on the list is not Future Jihad by Dr. Walid Phares, which engages in the paranoid assertion that al-Qaeda was strengthened after 9/11 and they have infiltrated the highest levels of our government, our financial institutions, and our education systems. If you went through the book and changed "jihad" to "Communism," "Muslim" to "Communist," and *any middle eastern country* to "Russia," you could put Caspar Weinberger's name on the front, publish it in 1982, and sell a bazillion copies.