The number of female ambassadors dispatched to the U.S. from foreign countries has hit a record 25 since Hillary Clinton became secretary of state. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
From TPM Reader JF …
Dear Josh,
I’m disappointed with your post on Reid’s now-famous remark.
You state that “Reid’s was an offensive remark.” That is just not true.
Even George Will can see that Reid’s remark was not offensive at all (I’m sure you’ve watched the video of him arguing with Liz Cheney on this point).
It’s true that “Negro” is archaic, and shouldn’t be used. But that doesn’t make Reid’s remark “offensive.” Far from it. (And I don’t know what on earth you mean by “race-tinged.” How is it “tinged”? The comment is _about_ race.)
I’ll leave to others to decide what the Reid remark/apology is. But it’s pretty clearly nothing that the incident that brought down then-Majority Leader Trent Lott, notwithstanding a lot of folks fairly tendentiously trying to suggest otherwise. Reid’s was an offensive remark — using race-tinged and now archaic phrases to make a point that is really not all that controversial in itself. He apologized. And now we’ll have to see what the consequences turn out to be.
What happened with Lott was altogether different. Read More
Special elections are notoriously hard to poll because it’s hard to figure out just who is going to show up to vote. (That’s the reference to the ‘screen’ — how the pollster figures out who is a likely voter.) But this is a helluva a spread. Public Policy Polling last night released it’s survey of the special election to fill the seat of Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts. And they have Republican Scott Brown actually one point ahead of Democrat Martha Coakley. That’s essentially a toss up. But still. The thought that the GOP might take Kennedy’s seat — is a huge deal not only in symbolic terms but also in very real practical ones: it might well put an end to Health Care Reform for good.
But here’s the thing, the Boston Globe also has a poll out this morning. And they have Coakley up by 15 points. Read More
It must be tough for Mr. 9/11 to be forced to admit that 9/11 happened. And even under Bush, no less. But that’s what Rudy had to do this afternoon on CNN. See video of the crow-fest here.
The funny thing about this is that Rudy didn’t just suggest that 9/11 didn’t happen or didn’t happen under President Bush. He said that no other terrorist incidents like the Xmas Shoe Bomber case happened on President Bush’s watch, which is clearly preposterous since the Richard Reid “shoe bomber” case happened shortly after 9/11, as did the never solved Anthrax case and arguably a few others.
The thing about President Bush is that whatever other damage he did — and I’d say there was quite a bit — no other catastrophic terrorist event happened on his watch after 9/11. Whether that was because of his actions or whether another president would have done just as well is speculation and conjecture. But the buck stops with the president. And that’s a reality you cannot take away from him. Rudy manages to besmirch this honorable accomplishment with his outlandish nonsense.
Michael Steele, facing criticism from within his party that his new book is distracting from his duties as RNC chairman, now claims he wrote the book before he took the helm of the GOP last year. But here’s the thing. Our Eric Kleefeld masochistically volunteered to read Steele’s book this week. He finished a couple of nights ago and reports that the book is almost entirely focused on events in 2009 that happened while Steele was chairman, suggesting the book was completed late in the year. He also refers to himself in the book as, um, RNC chairman. Makes you wonder.
James Carville, you won’t be surprised to know, has an irreverent take on the use of bodyscanners as an airport security measure.
What could be so important that Michael Steele would go so far as to cancel on an interview with ABC?
If Michael Steele didn’t exist, TPM would have to invent him. We chronicle the latest from the Steele files:
Stephen Colbert walks us through how you “connect the dots” when you’re handling intelligence. Watch.