A Ted Olson nomination for attorney general will run into stiff resistance from Senate Democrats. “I intend to do everything I can to prevent him from being confirmed as the next attorney general,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said today.
Calling the attack website “juvenile and offensive,” Mitt Romney tried to further distance himself from the site created by Romney supporters to mock Fred Thompson.
Atrios discovers that the two units of measure are interchangeable, and each is equivalent to about six months, give or take.
Reed Hundt on “the largest, fastest, and most important extension of communications capability ever seen.”
Robert Novak reports the GOP could lose at least 5 Senate seats next year. One of the more hotly contested races will be to replace retiring Sen. John Warner (R-VA). The AP reports that former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner (no relation) will enter that race. An official announcement is expected tomorrow.
Remember that unrehearsed flash of candor where Gen. Petraeus said he didn’t know whether being in Iraq was making America safer? And then later he ‘set the record straight‘?
Joe Klein told Chris Matthews that he thought that during the recess in testimony Petraeus got an angry call from the White House telling him to set the record straight. Take a look …
It sounds like this was an inference on Klein’s part. But it sounds like a sound one.
From the UK Independent …
The US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, expressed long-term interest in running for the US presidency when he was stationed in Baghdad, according to a senior Iraqi official who knew him at that time.
Sabah Khadim, then a senior adviser at Iraq’s Interior Ministry, says General Petraeus discussed with him his ambition when the general was head of training and recruitment of the Iraqi army in 2004-05.
“I asked him if he was planning to run in 2008 and he said, ‘No, that would be too soon’,” Mr Khadim, who now lives in London, said.
General Petraeus has a reputation in the US Army for being a man of great ambition. If he succeeds in reversing America’s apparent failure in Iraq, he would be a natural candidate for the White House in the presidential election in 2012.
I pass this on with the caveat that Mr. Khadim may have various axes to grind against Petraeus. I don’t know one way or another. It’s just an important possibility to keep in mind. Khadim was in the Interior Ministry during Allawi’s prime ministership, how that might fit in I do not know.
There’s been so much news with the Petraeus festival over the last few days and so many posts because of that that some of our stuff just zips right down the page. So in case you missed them, we wanted to bring you parts one and two of our interview with fmr. Sen. John Edwards (D)
An article in tomorrow’s Times reports that the long-negotiated compromise which seemed to be leading towards an Iraqi oil law — a key ‘progress’ benchmark — has apparently collapsed. All gone down the drain.
The story though connects up with another one we told you about just a couple days ago — the decision of the Kurdistan regional government to sign an oil exploration deal with Dallas-based Hunt Oil, run by Mr. Ray L. Hunt.
The Shia and Sunni leaders believe the Kurds are opting for a sort of oil secession that puts them outside the whole concept of a law to share the country’s oil resources. And the Hunt deal is apparently the straw that broke the camel’s back, shall we say.
But remember, Hunt, in addition to being the son of legendary Texas John Birch Society extremist H.L. Hunt, is also a pal of the president’s. Indeed, President Bush has twice appointed Hunt to his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. So while the president is striving to get the Iraqis to meet these benchmarks one of his own pals — and more importantly, political appointees — is busy helping to tear the whole thing apart.
Petraeus’ command finally explains the method behind their numbers on sectarian violence in Iraq — the numbers that show plummeting totals due to the surge. Now we just need them to explain their explanation.