According to this article in the Post, in addition to the approximately 140,000 US troops in Iraq there are approximately 100,000 US military contractors working in the country.
Hillary calling Iowa Dems, tells unnamed NY pol, “I’m going to go for this.”
I’ve been saying this in one form or another going back to 2001. But I’ve always thought Hillary’s chances are way over-rated. Not just in a hypothetical general election — that’s another matter — but in a Democratic primary election. As much as Hillary — who I’m a fan of — has taken the brunt of ugly beltway conventional wisdom over the years, I still think her apparent strength at this point is just that — puffed up endlessly by beltway insiders who aren’t in touch with the real viability of her candidacy, or lack thereof.
Late Update: TPM Reader KD seems to agree … “My take, similar to yours, is that she has been anointed frontrunner by two groups of people for two different sets of reasons: conservatives, because they are obsessed with the Clintons and they think they can beat her; and the beltway media, because it is easy and they think it would be fun. Nobody has yet asked the Democratic voters, and color me skeptical.”
Later Update: Then there’s TPM Reader ML … “not only have they failed to ask democratic voters, they have failed to make the rudimentary observation that no one in the grassroots wants clinton. further observations i could offer include that very few democratic party operatives (who aren’t highly-paid) care about her candidacy. another one: democratic primary voters are going to care about who can win in the general, and there’s substantial evidence and complementary bad buzz suggesting that clinton would not be our gal. people want a winner, and if there’s such a widespread early perception that she would lose the general, i don’t see how she overcomes that.”
Okay, yet another list update. We’ve now subdivided our list of corrupt administration officials into those who were indicted for crimes (9), those who resigned amidst ethics/corruption investigations (13), and those who were too crooked or ethically compromised to get confirmed by the Republican senate (3).
Have we missed any?
Ahh, the last refuge. Corrupt Rep. Bill Jefferson (D-LA) is in a run-off battle with fellow Dem Karen Carter in Louisiana’s 2nd district. He’s just hit the airwaves with an ad attacking her for being pro-gay marriage, pro-abortion rights and pro-stem cell research.
The Los Angeles Times yesterday raised questions about Robert Gates’ financial ties. Over at TPMmuckraker, we’ve obtained a copy of his 24-page Financial Disclosure Report. Take a look.
Andrew Sullivan writes that we may be on the brink of a regional conflagration in the Middle East in which the states of the region begin acting much as the nation-states of Europe did in the 16th and 17th centuries. This brings me back to a thought I’ve had again and again ever since we decided to take a hands on role in the religio-cultural evolution of the Arab Middle East and the Muslim world just after 9/11. As I have, you’ve probably read a hundred times from this and that pundit that what Islam needs is its own Reformation along the lines of the Reformation in Europe that took up, in one sense or another, the better part of two centuries.
But if what you care about is geopolitical stability, less religious extremism in the political realm, or just fewer people being sawed in half or burned alive, then you can really only say this if you know little or nothing about what the Reformation actually was. Or, perhaps better to say, that it was actually a pretty rough ride for something like 150 years.
In the Muslim world, we don’t have the break out of an entirely novel schism in the dominant religious culture. But in other respects, let’s go down the list: renewal of eschatalogical enthusiasm, check; heightened sectarian identification and inter-sectarian violence, check; breakdown of established mechanisms of state and social authority, check. I’d say we, or rather they, may be about set to have their Reformation. Or they may already be in thick of it.
Not to worry, though. By 2146 or so, after a century or so of bloodletting, there may be a broad political and ideological consensus in favor or relegating religion to the private sphere and leaving the whole thing to personal conscience.
More in our continuing series profiling the investigators who’ll be making headlines in the new Congress (at least, most of them will).
In this edition, it’s the inexhaustible Henry Waxman (D-CA) and the not-so-inexhaustible Joe Lieberman (D-CT).
Paul mentioned this in the post below. But I’d like to focus in on this point a bit. A big part of what Dems were after in the mid-terms was oversight and investigations. So how many folks know that the chief investigations and oversight guy in the Senate is Joe Lieberman?
Follow-up from Dennis Prager: I’ve never even hinted there should be a religious test for federal office, only that a Christian bible should be present whenever anyone takes the oath of office.
More Prager: Ellison can bring the Koran to his sweaing in too, as long as he also brings a Christian bible.
Even More Prager: I’m a victim of a secularist witchhunt.
Still More Prager: I have one of the most pretentious and pompous sounding voices in America.
(ed.note: Okay, I made up the last one. But one, two and three are all in his new column.)
Late Update: As Thinkprogress points out, Prager’s one of President Bush’s appointees to the Holocaust Memorial Museum board.
That was quick. Armed Services Committee approves Gates unanimously for Sec Def.