Good work: the Hastert earmark scam makes it into the Washington Post. Post writer Jonathan Weisman also notes that Reps. Calvert (R-CA) and Miller (R-CA) also profited through similar arrangements in which road construction earmarks they got dramatically increased the value of nearby parcels of land they owned.
This genuinely surprises me. William Perry and Ashton Carter have an column in Thursday’s Post in which they argue that President Bush should use a cruise missile attack to destroy the Taepodong missile now sitting on a launch pad in North Korea and apparently being prepared for launch. (There is also an article in the Post that discusses the significance of the article.) This latest version of the Taepodong missile can reportedly hit the United States.
Here are some key portions of the piece …
Should the United States allow a country openly hostile to it and armed with nuclear weapons to perfect an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering nuclear weapons to U.S. soil? We believe not. The Bush administration has unwisely ballyhooed the doctrine of “preemption,” which all previous presidents have sustained as an option rather than a dogma. It has applied the doctrine to Iraq, where the intelligence pointed to a threat from weapons of mass destruction that was much smaller than the risk North Korea poses. (The actual threat from Saddam Hussein was, we now know, even smaller than believed at the time of the invasion.) But intervening before mortal threats to U.S. security can develop is surely a prudent policy.
…
This is a hard measure for President Bush to take. It undoubtedly carries risk. But the risk of continuing inaction in the face of North Korea’s race to threaten this country would be greater. Creative diplomacy might have avoided the need to choose between these two unattractive alternatives. Indeed, in earlier years the two of us were directly involved in negotiations with North Korea, coupled with military planning, to prevent just such an outcome. We believe diplomacy might have precluded the current situation. But diplomacy has failed, and we cannot sit by and let this deadly threat mature. A successful Taepodong launch, unopposed by the United States, its intended victim, would only embolden North Korea even further. The result would be more nuclear warheads atop more and more missiles.
All sorts of people write all sorts of columns. But Bill Perry isn’t some nut. Far from it. He was Bill Clinton’s second defense secretary. He’s a very shrewd, level-headed guy. And he’s been deeply involved in the North Korea issue for years. Carter was an assistant secretary of defense under Perry.
In case the Casey campaign needs more stuff to beat Rick Santorum over the head with. From the Post …
Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) told reporters yesterday that weapons of mass destruction had in fact been found in Iraq, despite acknowledgments by the White House and the insistence of the intelligence community that no such weapons had been discovered.
What’ worse is that Hoekstra is the head of the House intel committee. Incorrigible.
TPM Reader RW on Hastert’s sweet earmark deal …
You can tell how bad a deal is by the mendacity used to defend it. Take, for example, J. Randolph Evans, Esq. (sounds like someone out of Trading Places), attorney for Denny Hastert. He defends Hastert’s land-deal earmarks by “asserting that a new road project would have an impact on land values more than 5 1/2 miles away ‘would be like complaining about a purchase in Alexandria, Virginia, based on renovations at the Capitol’.” I can assure you, there’s a big difference between a change in a well-settled city like Washington, D.C. and proto-exurban farmland outside of D.C. I’ve lived in both places and I can tell you that before development got there, there was nothing. A multi-lane highway going through near proto-exurban farmland like that is bound to make land values skyrocket. I assure you however, if there was a way in which GOP legislators could make money off of a parcel of land in Alexandria by renovating the Capital, there would be an earmark ready to go.
Fresh out of the toaster. From Quinnipiac: “Pennsylvania voters give Democratic State Treasurer Robert Casey Jr. a 52 – 34 percent lead over incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, with 12 percent undecided, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.”
Zogby has a new round of polls out for the WSJ. GOP leads in just 5 of the 17 senate races tracked.
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Convicted former White House official speaks. This and more of the day’s news in today’s Daily Muck.
I think Paul Begala has it exactly right on what the Democrats should be saying about Iraq. Give it a read.