Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is delaying his formal entry into the presidential campaign to deliver a “major speech on Iraq” on April 11 at the Virginia Military Institute. McCain “now faces a forest of hurdles, including continued skepticism from the party’s conservative base and mocking coverage of his televised assertions that Iraq is safer than portrayed by the media.”
While President Bush has focused much of his opposition to the Iraq redeployment on the earmarks attached to it, the Washington Post reports, “such spending has been part of Iraq funding bills since the war began, sometimes inserted by the president himself, sometimes added by lawmakers with bipartisan aplomb.”
The House Armed Services Committee has said it will stop using the phrase “global war on terror.” A memo for the committee staff, circulated March 27, says defense policy should be specific about military operations and “avoid using colloquialisms.”
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) will co-head a private bipartisan delegation to North Korea next week to retrieve the remains of U.S. troops lost during the Korean War. Conservatives are up in the arms over the announcement. Political consultant Ed Rogers observed, “Talk about retreating to a Clinton policy.”
The New York Times criticizes the Bush administration for its suggestion that Matthew Dowd and other war critics “whose children are at risk are too ‘emotional’ to see things clearly,” calling it “deeply wrong” and “especially galling from a president who from the start tried to paint this war as virtually sacrifice-free.”
Tim Griffin, the U.S. attorney named as the replacement for Bud Cummins in Arkansas, “claims on his official Web site that he prosecuted 40 criminal cases while at Ft. Campbell, where he was stationed from September 2005 to May 2006. But Army authorities say Ft. Campbell’s records show Griffin only serving as assistant trial counsel on three cases, none of which went to trial.”
“In March, a total of 2,762 Iraqi civilians and policemen were killed, down 4 percent from the previous month, when 2,864 were killed. The number of Iraqi policemen killed across Iraq nearly doubled from 171 in February to 331 in March, according to Interior Ministry statistics.”
“The Bush administration has begun to step up its efforts to build a controversial missile defense system in eastern Europe, launching a public push in recent weeks…to overcome fears of a new arms race elsewhere on the continent,” the LA Times reports. The move “could escalate a simmering diplomatic issue into a significant international dispute.”
And finally: The Chicago Sun-Times is crediting political satirist Stephen Colbert with the record-breaking increase of applicants to Knox College in Illinois. Since Colbert spoke at the school’s commencement ceremony last year, and subsequently mentioned Knox on his TV show, the school has seen a 20% increase in applicants.
What did we miss? Let us know in the comments section.
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