“The Office of Special Counsel confirmed to ABC News it has launched an investigation into General Services Administration chief Lurita Doan, probing concerns she may have violated a ban against conducting partisan political activity at government expense by participating in a meeting featuring a presentation by a White House political aide on GOP election strategy.”
Former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR):
“My own personal hero on the court is (Antonin) Scalia, not least because I duck-hunted with him.”
“That is utter rubbish. It’s electoral propaganda.”
CBS News Correspondent Allen Pizzey on McCain’s remarks about his trip to Baghdad: “It’s disgraceful for a man seeking highest office, I think, to talk utter rubbish. And that is utter rubbish. It’s electoral propaganda. It is simply not true. No one in his right mind who has been to Baghdad believes that story.”
UPDATE: According to McCain adviser Max Boot, the U.S. embassy’s security coordinator “refused to sign off on McCain’s visit because he thought it was too risky.”
Generic
Ben Smith: “And Pollster.com says the Diageo Hotline poll coming out today has a generic Democrat beating a generic Republican 47%-29%.”
Whoa.
As Smith notes, named matchups never poll out even close to that favorably for any of the Democrats. That said, this is an advantage I’d gladly take if I were a Democratic candidate looking forward to a general election. Painting your opponent as a member of the political party he is, in fact, a member of seems like one of the less-difficult lines of attack to carry out. Not a no-brainer by any means, but something that can be done. Especially because Giuliani and McCain are both falling over each other to embrace the most important elements of GOP dogma.
Pelosi Challenges White House: If I Gave Syria The Wrong Message, Prove It
Conservatives and media figures continue to claim, without evidence, that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) delivered an incorrect message from Israel to Syria during her meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Pelosi insists that Israel’s message was communicated accurately, and has suggested a good way to prove it:
[Pelosi spokesman Brendan] Daly pointed out that Pelosi was briefed by State Department officials before her meetings with the foreign leaders and that State Department officials also attended her meetings.
So if Pelosi really committed foreign policy flubs of the first order, the State Department is in a position to confirm as much.
The White House certainly received a read-out of what exactly Pelosi and the foreign leaders said in their meetings. Significantly, the White House has not openly accused Pelosi of the foreign-policy missteps the Post had accused her of.In an e-mail follow-up, Daly wrote: “WH has not said that because in fact the Speaker did not get the message wrong — she included the necessary caveats and did not say or imply that this was a change in Israel’s position.”
Indeed, despite President Bush’s claim that Pelosi’s trip sent “mixed signals,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said during his briefing today, “I don’t think [the trip] necessarily complicates anything that we’re doing.”
“I’m the Richard Pombo of the next election,”
said Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK). “I understand that.” Richard Pombo — a former California congressman — was defeated in his reelection bid because he was plagued by allegations of corruption.
Radio host: Pelosi is ‘lip-locking with king of the terrorists.’
On Fox News today, right-wing radio host Mark Williams attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for her trip to Syria. He said that she was “in Syria lip-locking with the king of terrorists” because Democrats have failed to recognize that we “have been attacked by a seventh-century death cult known as Islam.” Watch it:
[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2007/04/radiosyriafox.320.240.flv]
Yesterday, CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux asked Imad Moustapha, Syrian ambassador to the United States, why anyone should “see” Pelosi’s trip as “any more [than] a political stunt here, a publicity stunt, a big wet kiss to [Syrian] President [Bashar] Al-Assad?”
Time to Reconsider?
Oh, crap. Victor Davis Hanson comes out against bombing Iran, thus forcing me to wonder whether I should give the military option a second look.
Wolfowitz’s gal pal shown favoritism at World Bank.
Murray Waas reports on an internal World Bank memo alleging that Shaha Riza, Paul Wolfowitz’s romantic interest, “was given a ‘promotion [that] clearly does not conform’ to bank procedures,” and that “she was then given a raise ‘more than double the amount allowed’ by the bank’s rules.” Also, “Wolfowitz reportedly attempted to circumvent the rules so he would be able to continue to work with Riza,” shifting her to work at the State Department’s public diplomacy office “even though her salary was still to be paid by the World Bank.”
IPCC: “High Confidence” Warming is Already Changing the Climate
One notable aspect of the IPCC’s release tomorrow is that what you read you can also look out your window to see. The paper’s topic is how climate change has begun to impact ecosystems across the globe, and the authors assert with “high confidence” that global warming is responsible for changes taking place.
For example, as the Washington Post point out, there’s a good chance that the birds in your neighborhood are subtly displaying signs of warmer temperatures. Some species have changed migration patterns, when they lay their eggs, or even their primary habitat.
Other signs of warming may not be as close, but are even more clear, such as retreating glaciers and bleached corals – both losing the essence of their being, which we have long revered and explored in awe.
And then there’s how humanity will be impacted, projections which are for the most part pessimistic. The New York Times has an interactive feature on the Winners and Losers in a Changing Climate. In short, industrialized nations’ emissions have doomed the agricultural forecast for developing nations, and yet in our globalized society we’ll all be hit with shortages.
Just one day before the official summary of the second Working Group’s paper, you wonder, ‘What changes can I see out my own window?’ and ‘Do I really want to see a summary of how this is going to get worse?’
