Lurita Doan’s second hearing before the House oversight committee is postponed until June 13.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted today that Vice President Cheney “fully supports a diplomatic course over Iran’s nuclear program, denying impressions of divisions among President Bush’s foreign-policy advisers.”

Rice was responding to remarks made by Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. ElBaradei told BBC Radio that the world risked a war in Iran because of “new crazies who say ‘let’s go and bomb Iran.’ ”

Asked who the “new crazies” were, ElBaradei replied: “Those who have extreme views and say the only solution is to impose your will by force.”

Rice said she had “no idea” who the IAEA chief was talking about. “But when pressed by a reporter on whether ElBaradei’s reference could include Cheney,” she said the President’s policy is “supported by all of the members of his cabinet — and by the vice president of the United States.”

Last week, President Bush nominated James W. Holsinger to become the next Surgeon General of the United States:

As America’s chief health educator, he will be charged with providing the best scientific information available on how Americans can make smart choices that improve their health and reduce their risk of illness and injury. … I am confident that Dr. Holsinger will help our Nation confront this challenge and many others to ensure that Americans live longer, better, and healthier lives.

But as BarbinMD points out, Holsinger’s nomination to be “America’s doctor” is troubling. He has a long history of prejudice toward gays and lesbians. Some examples:

– Holsinger founded Hope Springs Community Church, which “ministers to people who no longer wish to be gay or lesbian.” Holsinger said that he sees homosexuality as “an issue not of orientation but of lifestyle.” [Lexington Herald-Leader, 6/1/07]

– In serving on the United Methodist Judicial Council — the “court” that resolves “disputes involving church doctrine and policies in the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination” — Holsinger “opposed a decision to allow a practicing lesbian to be an associate pastor, and he supported a pastor who would not permit an openly gay man to join the church.” [Lexington Herald-Leader, 6/1/07]

– In the early 1990s, Holsinger resigned from the United Methodist Church’s Committee to Study Homosexuality “because he believed the committee ‘would follow liberal lines.’” He also warned “that acceptance of homosexuality would drive away millions of churchgoers.” [Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 5/26/07; Time, 6/24/91]

Despite this history, Holsinger-supporter Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher (R) inexplicably insists, “Anyone who knows Jim Holsinger knows that he’s not an individual given to prejudice.” A date for Holsinger’s Senate hearings has not been set.

UPDATE: Bible Belt Blogger has more on Holsinger.

Digg It!

From this morning’s press briefing with outgoing Counselor to the President Dan Bartlett:

Q Did you take into consideration at all in your decision the status the administration is in right now, the difficulties with Congress and the issues? Was that any bearing on your thinking?

MR. BARTLETT: Well, one thing I’ve learned working in the White House for as long as I have is that you can never pick a moment — it’s kind of like when maybe some of my fellow male colleagues who are struggling for that right moment to pop the question. You’ve just got to do it. You can’t predict — you can’t say there’s a perfect moment or not. You just — you can try to plan it, you can try to do this, but in the end, you’ve got to go with your gut and your instinct. And my instinct told me this was the right time.

UPDATE: As ABC’s Jake Tapper notes, the relationship is very close:

I first got to know Bartlett in 1999 when he was director of Rapid Response for the Bush for President campaign — “rapid response” being the term of art for having responses to any serious questions about the then-governor’s draft record, DUI, etc etc. If you had a question about anything uncomfortable or untoward, you were referred to Dan.

President Bush’s approval rating during the month of May, “the lowest level ever recorded by Rasmussen Reports. That’s down a full three points from April’s 39 percent which had previously been the lowest rating for the President.”

Usually it’s someone “from the third world” or who contracted “ooga booga fever” in “some godforsaken hellhole.”

A frightening specter from David Brooks: “Perhaps, as my friend Daniel Casse notes, what the G.O.P. needs is Newt Gingrich’s brain lodged in Fred Thompson’s temperament.”

I think the GOP needs to look harder at the reanimated corpse of Ronald Reagan as an option. Seriously, though, to me the striking thing about the Gingrich section of Jeffrey Goldberg’s profile of Republicans adrift is that for the self-proclaimed candidate of new ideas and new directions, Gingrich seems mighty short on actual new ideas for the country.