In a letter to Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) requested that the full Senate be briefed on documents pertaining to the legal justifications for the administration’s warrantless wiretapping progam. With the Senate debating FISA reform, Reid says “it is of critical importance that all Senators…have an opportunity to review these key documents themselves.” Previously, only the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees have had access to the documents.

Read Reid’s full letter here.

David Frum looks at the rise of the Republican Fringe and says the conservative movement needs to engage in some self-criticism — the anti-intellectualism and suspicion of expertise they’ve encouraged have allowed Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul to break through despite having quack economic policy ideas. In response Ross points out that Rudy Giuliani has a quack economic policy idea at the center of his campaign, too “I know that reducing taxes produces more revenue. The Democrats don’t know that. They don’t believe that.” And yet Frum somehow can’t find the strength to criticize him.

And in some ways, I’d note that it’s even worse than yet. Mitt Romney, presumably under Greg Mankiw’s influence, has always carefully refrained from saying he thinks cutting taxes increases revenue. But he still swears allegiance to the Gospel of Neverending Tax Cuts. And more to the point, he won’t criticize his rivals for their adherence to a crackpot notion because he thinks that would be a losing issue for him. The rot goes all the way up and down the structure.

In the current issue of Foreign Affairs, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee criticized the Bush administration’s unilateral foreign policy, arguing the “Bush administration’s arrogant bunker mentality has been counterproductive at home and abroad” and has pit “us against the world.”

In response, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney rushed to defend Bush, stating, “we ought to be saying thank you to the president for keeping us safe these last six years.” Romney even said that “Huckabee owes the President an apology.”

The right wing joined Romney in attacking Huckabee. Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said Huckabee would serve conservatism better “if he focused his criticisms on the Democrats” and that Bush “has kept us safe.” The National Review and neconservative Victor David Hanson also slammed him.

But Huckabee wasn’t the only one criticizing Bush’s foreign policy this weekend. Former U.N. ambassador John Bolton ripped President Bush in an interview with Der Spiegel. Bolton said Bush is excessively “moderate,” subsequently “putting US national security at risk“:

“His foreign policy is in free fall. The president is acting against his own judgement and instincts [and is] under the influence of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,” he told the magazine. Mr Bolton said Ms Rice was the dominant voice on foreign policy and that she was a channel for the views of liberal career bureaucrats in the foreign ministry.

“[Bush] does not supervise her enough. That is a mistake.” “North Korea will, for example, now keep its nuclear weapons. And the Iranians have got a signal from our own intelligence services that they can do whatever they want. “I am not as confident as the intelligence services that Iran has stopped its nuclear weapons programme.”

So far, Romney and the right wing have been completely silent on Bolton, despite their criticisms of Huckabee. Although Bolton and Huckabee’s attacks on Bush come from different perspectives — Huckabee says Bush is too arrogant and Bolton says he is not arrogant enough — they both agree that the President’s foreign policy has made America less safe.

Will Romney — who thinks Bush has been “keeping us safe these last six years” — also demand an apology from John Bolton?

The AP reports:

White House visitor logs are public documents, a federal judge ruled Monday, rejecting a legal strategy that the Bush administration had hoped would get around public records laws.

The ruling is a blow to the Bush administration, which is fighting the release of records showing visits by lobbyist Jack Abramoff and prominent religious conservatives.

The records are created by the Secret Service, which is subject to the Freedom of Information Act. But the Bush administration has ordered the data turned over to the White House, where they are treated as presidential records outside the scope of the public records law.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth said logs from the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney’s residence are subject to public records request.

Earlier this month, the Bush administration tried to argue that the Secret Service records were “highly sensitive” and could not be “publicly revealed.”

Adam Nagourney noted in yesterday’s Week in Review that Republican primary voters aren’t just having a hard time making up their minds, they don’t really care for their choices: “A New York Times/CBS News poll last week found that none of the Republican candidates — not even the suddenly hot Mr. Huckabee — was viewed favorably by even half of Republican voters.” Check out the result in graphical form:

This is in stark contrast to the Democrats. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are seen favorably by majorities of Democrats, and John Edwards has a very favorable ratio. The general pattern, is just that the more famous the Democrat is, the more Democratic voters like him or her:

Basically, if either Clinton or Obama winds up winning, the nominee is going to be someone who even many of the supporters of the other candidate have a favorable view of. It seems likely, meanwhile, that Edwards will become similarly well-liked if he has a breakout moment in and after Iowa. The Republicans, by contrast, are going to wind up nominating someone who many Republicans dislike.

On CBS’s 60 Minutes last night, correspondent Lesley Stahl reported that “discharges of gay soldiers” due to the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy “are dropping dramatically.” In the report, Stahl told the story of Army Sergeant Darren Manzella, who was “told to go back to work” after revealing to his battalion commander that he was gay. Speaking to CNSNews today, Matt Barber of Concerned Women for America attacked CBS for airing the story:

“If the bleeding-heart lefties over at CBS News and the SLDN really want to do something to support our troops and help the military, they should abandon their attempts to radically alter and undermine the armed forces, pipe down, put a cork in it and let our brave fighting men and women win this war on terror,” he added.

Andrew Sullivan notes how the 60 Minutes report “reveals that, in fact, wartime is the period when gay discharges routinely decline.”