We’ve just updated our Pope candidate cheat sheet. Check it out here.
What stands out endearingly to me is that each guy, or at least several of them, have their own tag line angle about how they’re ready to connect with the young folk. This guy reads and cites Kerouac and Cormac McCarthy. This guy listens to Amy Winehouse! And this guy writes his own tweets.
Of course, those seem better than suggesting that Jewish interests pressed the media to focus on church sex abuse scandals.
House passes continuing budget resolution 267-151, with 53 Democratic votes in favor.
Ahmadinejad: Chavez will come again with Jesus and the Hidden Imam.
Depending on where you sit, President Obama’s recent and growing outreach to rank and file Republicans is either a major victory for platitudinous calls for leadership or the early stages of a “charm offensive” that will divide Republicans and party leaders, isolate House Republicans, and ultimately provide Obama with the budget “grand bargain” he’s been chasing for two years.
Here’s my own hunch: This is as much about placating DC elites as it is rooted in an earnest belief that Obama can get Rob Portman, Ron Johnson, and others to agree to raise taxes by $600 billion. The idea is — or part of it — that if the effort fails, then critics of his leadership will at long last have to acknowledge that GOP anti-tax absolutism is the irreducible element of budget gridlock in Washington. I don’t think things work this way. For people who believe leadership boils down to backslapping and cajoling, the absence of a deal — any deal — is tautologically evidence that both parties have somehow failed. Read More
A quick look at Obama’s second term team … so far. Good to see that Bo made the cut.
After Senate Republicans today filibustered the nomination of Caitlin Halligan to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) said it might be time to revisit the (weak) deal Senate Democrats struck on filibuster reform at the beginning of this Congress … in January.
Yesterday, as noted here, The Daily Caller attacked The Washington Post and stood by their Menendez/prostitution story. But, not altogether consistent with that, they also said they’d spend yesterday verifying their story. So we’re keeping our collective ears to the ground today waiting to hear how that verification went. Read More
Disgraced ex-Rep Bob Ney (R-OH), one of the mid-level players in the Abramoff scandal, says now-Speaker Boehner offered him a job to get him to resign.