The Texas Blue: News
Sunday TV Highlights
Mon, 04/07/2008 - 9:30am
Hotline presents the high points from yesterday's political talk shows. My favorite blurb, from Senator John Kerry in the Black Den of Fox News Sunday, who put the idea to rest that when John McCain said 100 years in Iraq, he didn't mean it:
On the 100 years war issue, John McCain is being disingenuous, because what he said in that interview was as long as there is no violence — which indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of Iraq itself. Our own national intelligence people tell us it is the American presence that is attracting jihadists and creating violence. So if he's talking about being there for 40 years, 100 years, he's talking about attracting more and more terrorists and not paying attention to the larger challenges.
News Roundup, 4/7/2008: A Dichotomy of Believability
Mon, 04/07/2008 - 8:49am
News items rarely split the weekend into distinct categories of A) unbelievable and B) unsurprising, but that's what happened from Friday to Sunday.
Mark Penn Out at Clinton Campaign
Mon, 04/07/2008 - 5:58am
Long the subject of much debate, Clinton's chief strategist Mark Penn had attracted everything from wild praise to dark criticism, depending on the source. For the last several months, it was usually more criticism than praise. Late last week it came out that Mark Penn's PR firm had been working for the Colombian government in their efforts to nail down a free trade deal with the United States. Clinton opposes the deal, and the fairly quick result was Penn's resignation from his role on the campaign.
A Small Step
Sun, 04/06/2008 - 7:18pm
Weekend reports say that the Defense Department will reduce the maximum deployment time for soldiers' combat tours in Iraq from 15 months to 12 months, with an equal amount of time at home before being redeployed. This kind of action, which is a step in the right direction for preventing a further wearying of our forces, has been proposed by General George Casey. And plenty of Democrats.
Olympic Protests in London
Sun, 04/06/2008 - 5:30pm
Anti-China protestors demonstrating against human rights violations and that government's conduct in Tibet disrupted the run of the Olympic Torch through London. One guy even managed to steal the torch for a brief time. The Beijing Olympics are beginning to look like they will be a source of civil unrest all over the world.
VP Rice?
Sun, 04/06/2008 - 4:53pm
This is an interesting turn of events, even though it isn't quite surprising: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is lobbying to be McCain's running mate. Rice has said before that she wasn't interested in such a thing, but don't they all say that?
Blackwater Contract Renewed
Sat, 04/05/2008 - 2:00pm
Remember how Blackwater's conduct and operations in Iraq were horrifying and embarrassing? Well, the State Department just renewed their contract in Iraq for another year.
I tried to come up with something snappy to say here, but I failed.
A Tough Crowd
Sat, 04/05/2008 - 9:53am
John McCain, who voted against the legislation making Martin Luther King day a federal holiday, was booed for it (and, presumably, other things) during his speech in Memphis on the 40th anniversary of King's assassination. Huffington Post has video.
McCain's Deepening Finance Problems
Fri, 04/04/2008 - 4:26pm
John McCain has returned some $3 million in general election donations. He's done this because he is now actively going to pursue getting public financing, even though he tried to withdraw from it and started breaking election law and raising money beyond the cap in spite of the FEC's opinion that once you apply for public financing, you can't get out of it unless the FEC says so, and as such all the limits on raising and spending apply. It is no wonder that now McCain is asking for legal defense contributions instead of campaign dollars.