Fake Plastic News

Yesterday, a Rev. Scarborough said this about Tom Delay:

"This is a man, I believe, God has appointed ... to represent righteousness in governmentt," Scarborough told the audience, which included Eagle Forum Founder Phyllis Schlafly, former ambassador Alan Keyes, and Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan.

If you believe that, then you must also think there's a "War on Christians" going on.

Sen. McCain was on Imus this morning, and was asked about McCain taking his "straight talk"(*cough bullshit *cough) to Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. Remember, 6 years ago McCain said this:

"Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right."

Of course, McCain just agreed that yes, he is going to Liberty U., and Imus said "good for you, cover all your bases", or something like that. No follow up on what McCain said before about Falwell, or no Imus led trash talk on Falwell. Imus missed a great opportunity to see what Mr. Straight Talk really had to say, but wussed out, or didn't want to be too tough on his friend. This is the type of question that put Imus on the map, but now we see he's no different than fellow NBCer Russert. Like Sully says, I guess McCain has changed his mind.

Just heard from a friend that yesterday, there was a 3 hour wait for an official "George Mason Final Four" T-shirt. A t-shirt! Could you imagine that three months ago? GMU t-shirts were probably being used as a dust mop then.

Andy Card out, Josh Bolten in:

BIG NEWS FROM BUSH. White House chief of staff Andrew Card has resigned after five and a half years on the job. His replacement, Office of Management and Budget Director Joshua Bolten, has a strong domestic policy background, as well as close ties to the president. Peter Baker reports:

Resisting Republican advice to pick a seasoned Washington veteran the way Reagan brought in former Senate majority leader Howard H. Baker Jr. when his own presidency was listing in his second term, Bush characteristically picked someone he knows well and trusts implicitly.

Bolten was policy director of the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign in 1999-2000, during the brief era of compassionate conservatism, and spent his first two years in the White House as assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff for policy at the White House. I've heard good things about him from Democratic and Republican policy professionals in the past; his move to the OMB was once described to me as a symptom of the slow brain drain out of Bush's domestic policy apparatus that began mid-way through his first term, as the president's attentions shifted abroad.

UPDATE: That said, Bolten's not exactly fresh blood on the ideas front, having played a major role in last year's Social Security debacle.

As Garance said, Bolten's not fresh blood or a "heavy hitter" like Howard Baker or a Bob Dole type. Bolten was even NJ Governor Corzine's Chief of Staff, while the two were with Goldman Sachs. So, not exactly credentials that would make conservatives happy. Interesting choice. I actually like Bolten because he's got a bit of a non-partisan background, and is supposed to be a nice guy. I don't necessarily think it was a good choice for Bush. Then again, when has he made a good choice? And, does anyone really care who the Chief of Staff is?

I had a chance to see V for Vendetta this weekend. Loved it. Even got a partial standing ovation. Despite being written in the 90's, there's lot of obvious ideology and symbolism that is appropriate in the current environment. If you like to think while being entertained, this is for you.

25 Years.

"You cannot put a rope around the neck of an idea"

-Bobby Sands (sounding like "V" from "V for Vendetta")

Bush, this morning, on Rumsfeld:

He also stood by embattled Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.

"I don't believe he should resign. He's done a fine job. Every war plan looks good on paper until you meet the enemy," he said.

That's not the point. The point is that Rumsfeld has f'd everything up from day 1, and refused to do anything to change the plan. Rumsfeld (and Bush) is the reverse King Midas, everything he touches, turns to crap. To say the job Rumsfeld has done in Iraq is "fine", is like saying because he got his passengers half way to their destination, the captain of the Titanic did "fine".

Retires:

Paul Tagliabue is retiring as NFL commissioner in July after more than 16 years on the job.

The 65-year-old commissioner has led the league since 1989, when he succeeded Pete Rozelle, and had recently signed a two-year contract extension to complete the television and labor deals.

Senator Tagliabue? FPN in '04:

... NFL Commisioner Paul Tagliabue may run for U.S. Senate as a Democrat from NJ, if Senator Frank Lautenberg retires...

Late Update: Rumor was scooped from a Democratic Senator whose name rhymes with "Sockerfeller".

This is rediculous. I guess Bush didn't want to pick up the phone to speed things along. I understand why there's a "no fly" list, but someone who just left the WHITE HOUSE shouldn't have to take a train b/c of political revenge. What does that say about our train security, if Adams can easily get on a train, but not a plane?


In addition, on Friday, in honor of St. Patrick's Day, I attended a press confernce at the National Press Club, on the Northern Ireland Policing Board. It was somewhat interesting, even though I had to sit through a speech from the son of this guy. I have to admit, Junior, came across as quite charming and likeable, and seemingly not the flame-thrower (probably literally) his father is. There wasn't a whole lot of interesting tidbits from this presser, just a few comments (from a Protestant and Catholic) about how they shouldn't come to this country for this anymore, since we have our own policing problems, anyway.

I'm sick of all of them. Feingold is the only one with any guts.

Worth a read, so you'll know who the next Chalabi is.

Dick Morris:

Like a completely refurbished "pre-owned vehicle," Al Gore seems to be positioning himself to Hillary Clinton's left and greener than John Kerry for a run at the 2008 Democratic nomination for president. His slogan might well read "reelect Al Gore," writes former Bill Clinton adviser Dick Morris in a syndicated column Monday.

The former vice president's slashing attacks on the administration and his stalwart, if misguided, opposition to the Iraq war leave him without the complications and complexes that will devil Clinton as she seeks to appeal to the unforgiving left of the Democratic Party.

And Gore may be a man whose time has come in his party. It was he who warned of climate change and predicted its consequences. Hurricane Katrina was just a fulfillment of the prophesies Gore wrote about in his late-1980s book "Earth in the Balance." He has been an energy-conservation nut for years, and his obsessions with alternatives to oil will play better and better as we come to realize how our addiction to oil has led us to dependency on the dealers of this particular drug - Iran, the Saudi royal family and Hugo Chavez.

....

History indicates that candidates who won the popular vote but lost in the Electoral College have all come back to win revenge in subsequent elections. Andrew Jackson, cheated in 1824, won in 1828. Grover Cleveland, cheated in 1888, triumphed in 1892. Samuel Tilden, who won the popular vote in 1876, never ran again, but he dealt away the White House in a deal for the withdrawal for federal troops from the South, allowing the Ku Klux Klan to take over.

FPN last September.

From Crooks and Liars:

There's a big split happening in the GOP (primarily over political positioning) and it was magnified by Hastert's view of the "port deal" who did take questions from reporters and Bill Frist-who turned his back on them.

Video-WMP Video-QT

(transcript from Lou Dobbs)

HENRY: But the Republican revolt against the president is not yet a full-scale uprising. While Hastert is pushing to block the port deal, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist wants the 45-day review to go forward before considering any legislation in his chamber. The Republican split was on display in an event celebrating renewal of the Patriot Act. As Hastert answered a question about the port controversy, Frist ignored reporters.

HASTERT: Well, we want to protect Americans. We have a point of view of this ...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator Frist? Senator Frist?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator Frist?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Senator Frist?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator Frist?

DOBBS: Now I'm a little confused. I'm confused. Ed, this is the same Republican leadership in the Senate who wanted an up-and-down vote out of Judiciary on court nominees, but is refusing to accord that courtesy and apparently extend the leadership's patience to an up-and-down vote on something as important as the Dubai Ports deal?

An idea that would help his dismal approval ratings, but like everything else, Bush's pride probably wouldn't allow him to do it:

The overwhelmingly young population—an ironic result of the mullahs' attempt to increase the birth rate after the calamitous war with Iraq—is fed up with medieval rule. Unlike the hermetic societies of Baathist Iraq and North Korea, Iran has been forced to permit a lot of latitude to its citizens. A huge number of them have relatives in the West, access to satellite dishes and cell phones, and regular contact with neighboring societies. They are appalled at the way that Turkey, for example, has evolved into a near-European state while Iran is still stuck in enforced backwardness and stagnation, competing only in the rug and pistachio markets. Opinion polling is a new science in Iran, but several believable surveys have shown that a huge majority converges on one point: that it is time to resume diplomatic relations with the United States. (The vast American Embassy compound, which I visited, is for now a stupid museum of propaganda. But when one mullah recently asked if he could have a piece of the extensive grounds for a religious school, he was told by the authorities that the place must be kept intact.)

So, picture if you will the landing of Air Force One at Imam Khomeini International Airport. The president emerges, reclaims the U.S. Embassy in return for an equivalent in Washington and the un-freezing of Iran's financial assets, and announces that sanctions have been a waste of time and have mainly hurt Iranian civilians. (He need not add that they have also given some clerics monopoly positions in various black markets; the populace already knows this.) A new era is possible, he goes on to say. America and the Shiite world have a common enemy in al-Qaida, just as they had in Slobodan Milosevic, the Taliban, and the Iraqi Baathists. America is home to a large and talented Iranian community. Let the exchange of trade and people and ideas begin! There might perhaps even be a ticklish-to-write paragraph, saying that America is not proud of everything it is has done in the past—most notably Jimmy Carter's criminal decision to permit Saddam to invade Iran.