ThinkFast: September 2, 2010

Speaking in Baghdad yesterday about the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that even if the Iraq war ends okay, “it will always be clouded by how it began.” “The problem with this war for, I think, many Americans is that the premise on which we justified going to war proved not to be valid, that is Saddam having weapons of mass destruction.”

As oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico, BP spent $94 million — triple what it usually spends — on advertising, according to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Most of the money went to newspaper, magazine, and television advertising, with a smaller amount spend on targeted internet ads.

Glenn Beck said yesterday that he’ll be traveling to Alaska next week to meet with Sarah Palin. They are expected to attend an event together on 9/11 and deliver speeches.

Undocumented “immigration to the U.S. has slowed sharply since 2007,” according to data released yesterday by the Pew Hispanic Center. Pew’s data finds that the number of undocumented immigrants coming into the country “plunged to an estimated 300,000 annually between March 2007 and 2009, from 850,000 a year between March 2000 and March 2005.”

“The U.S. military’s Central Command has proposed pumping as much as $1.2 billion over five years into building up Yemen’s security force,” seeking to bolster the country’s government against rebel elements. Some U.S. officials warn that favoring military aid over civilian aid will “encourage a negative perspective in Yemen that all we care about is U.S. security.”

In a “bitter debate filled with personal attacks,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and challenger Carly Fiorina (R) faced off for the first time during the California Senate election. The debate focused mainly on economic issues, with sharp exchanges also coming over the issue of climate change.

According to a USA Today analysis of government data, “[h]ealth care spending this year has grown at its slowest rate in a half-century, a sign that people are forgoing medical care during the recession.” Medical care spending rose at a 2.7 percent annual rate per person in the first half of 2010, “the smallest increase since the Bureau of Economic Analysis began tracking medical care in 1959.”

Harvard Law School dean Martha Minow told students this week that Elizabeth Warren is no longer teaching a class she was slated to teach, fueling speculation that she may be nominated to head the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. “Professor Warren regrets that she will not be able to teach you this fall and we regret the last minute change,” Minow’s email read.

In his new memoirs, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair calls former President Bush someone who was “very smart” while having “immense simplicity in how he saw the world.” Bush was a “true idealist” who displayed “genuine integrity and political courage,” Blair wrote.

And finally: While her appearance on the show has attracted a lot of attention, Bristol Palin has the worst odds of winning Dancing With The Stars, according to Las Vegas bookies. The Wynn hotel’s director of race & sports book operations gave the younger Palin steep odds of 35 to 1, easily below those of the Jersey Shore’s Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, who has an 11 to 1 chance of winning, according the odds.

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