Thursday Roundup: TYC Board Resigns

The TYC board has resigned. This has put Dewhurst in an odd position since Perry is currently in the Middle East and he is acting governor. After the Senate passed their measure to fire the current board and bring in a new one, Dewhurst was asked if he would sign that bill once it passed the House and / or place TYC in a conservatorship. Dewhurst didn't really answer, but the position makes for some wicked liability.

I suppose it is possible that someone -- somewhere -- could be crafting a portfolio for running Democrats against statewide Republicans entirely on the TYC scandal. Dewhurst's deferral was, of course, the only move he could make without declaring all-out war on Perry. It is truly rocky terrain for everyone in the state leadership these days, and it's only going to be so long before they openly turn on each other.

Speaking of turning on each other and failed leadership, Republicans all over are turning against Bush on No Child Left Behind. A ton of them are introducing legislation in the House that will allow states to opt out of the program. Roy Blunt and John Cornyn have both signed on to it, and things continue to go downhill for Premier Bush. This is good news for states that don't like having to subjugate their entire school curriculum to standardized testing.

If you are a freshman Democratic Congressman, Rahm Emanuel would really prefer it if you didn't go on the Colbert Report. He would probably prefer it if no one in the caucus went on the Colbert Report, because Colbert's ability to make people say zany things is considerable and frightening. Just imagine a push card which says "My opponent advocates putting kittens in wood chippers!" That's a consultant job that does itself.

If you were running for President, and you were already leaning pretty hard to the left, what kind of story would you rather not come out about you? Maybe a thing about how your firm has been lobbying the Texas government on behalf of Citgo, owned by Venezuela and administered by Huge Chavez? Giuliani is not personally lobbying on behalf of Citgo, but it can't be something his campaign is crazy about.

Oh hey, Karl Rove might get subpoenaed! Weird, huh? The Senate Judiciary committee is not going to let the Gonzales / US Attorney thing die, and it feels like everyone's getting ready to give him the Libby treatment. Something tells me that any opportunity for Democrats to get Rove is going to be seized with wild abandon.

The Politico has this profile of what Howard Dean has been doing on the international stage on behalf of whatever Democratic nominee makes the run to the White House. He's even been meeting with Christian evangelical leaders. No matter what, Dean is right about one thing: the 2008 presidential election (as well as every other race, really) will be won in 2007, not in 2008.

Finally, Senator Hillary Clinton said yesterday... well. It's a tough bill of sale for what she believes is the reality and the best policy for the future in Iraq. She plans on keeping a small force there for checking Iranian aggression and counter-terror operations. From the New York Times:

In a half-hour interview on Tuesday in her Senate office, Mrs. Clinton said the scaled-down American military force that she would maintain would stay off the streets in Baghdad and would no longer try to protect Iraqis from sectarian violence — even if it descended into ethnic cleansing.

I'm sure this won't make it into any commercials and that we'll never hear about it again.