Daily News Roundup, 10/30/07: Irony and Reports

There are plenty of reports every year about government at every level, and often political news in Texas coincides with the release of some report or another on departmental or governmental performance. The best report I've seen in a while, though, turns out to be about reports.

The Associated Press tells us that a long research project just concluded and has determined that there are too many reports generated by the state of Texas. Predictably, it brings you that information in a report that weighs in at a mammoth 668 pages. The gist is that some reporting requirements are obsolete or outdated, resulting in reports that aren't really needed. Or at least that's what the report says.

For those of you hungry for information on groups working on behalf of Democrats in Texas, you will do well to read this story about the Texas Democratic Trust, which has been active in many races across Texas in recent years. I was keenly interested to see the following, about the much discussed Harris County effort for 2008:

The group is also working alongside Harris County Democrats to develop a coordinated campaign for 2008. They hope their Houston-area brethren can have the same success that Dallas County Democrats had last year when they stunned Republicans by winning every contested countywide race.

We've said it several times, and we'll say it again: the race for taking the House back in time for the next redistricting is on, and a strong coordinated effort in Harris County is both encouraging and a good indicator of things to come.

If you've got a job, you might be lucky enough to have health care. If you're lucky enough to have health care, the price of that benefit is probably going to increase for you in 2008. The article attributes some of the price increases to the rising cost of drugs, and you can attribute the rising cost of drugs to a number of governmental shortcomings concerning our health care system. The ever-upward spiral of these costs is as good an indicator as any that serious health care reform is not only desirable, but necessary.

In recent weeks both George and I have had a thing or two to say about the Blackwater probe and, by association, the State Department. It looked, for a time, as if a real investigation into the Blackwater shootings in Iraq might occur, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Turns out, the guards involved in the most reported incident involving the killing of 17 Iraqi civilians received immunity during a State Department investigation of the incident. That is creating problems for the FBI as they investigate the incident, in that Blackwater guards' statements are unusable by the FBI. You can expect some turf war issues to arise between FBI and the Office of Diplomatic Security, and possibly Justice and State at large.

The Democrats are getting together for Debatemania XXI tonight on MSNBC, and that network has a report on what choices face Barack Obama as he looks at the rest of the field and his own image as the Hopeful Candidate of Hope — how will he go on the offensive without losing that image? As an examination of the current campaign dynamic, it is quite a good read.

On the other end of the spectrum, Rudy Giuliani continues his descent into madness. No longer content to make statements that are only kind of ridiculous, Giuliani has started making statements that are totally bonkers, if not completely craven. Consider the following, in which he criticizes Obama and Clinton for saying they would engage in diplomacy with Iran:

"This is the world we live in. It's not this happy, romantic-like world where we'll negotiate with this one, or we'll negotiate with that one and there will be no preconditions, and we'll invite (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad to the White House, we'll invite Osama (bin Laden) to the White House," Giuliani said.

"Hillary and Obama are kind of debating whether to invite them to the inauguration or the inaugural ball," he added.

I'm sure we can look forward to many more chestnuts like this as the campaign advances.