Harry Reid blasts McCain for multiple missed Senate votes. That and more political news of the day in today’s Election Central Morning Roundup.
Talks between the White House and Dem Congressional leaders over Iraq have just broken down and hit a wall.
Which U.S. attorneys made the firing lists and when? Well, at least now we know that much.
White House spokesman Tony Fratto plays another round of “How Low Can We Set The Bar” during this morning’s press gaggle.
Pelosi to Bush: Support our troops, don’t oppose their pay raise.
In new letter, Dem leadership blasts White House for the first time for opposing a 3.5% pay hike for the troops.
A savvy House Dem staffer we know gives us a candid and dispiriting overview of the political situation facing Congressional Dems on Iraq — and worries that the Dem leadership will cave.
Former Clinton-era U.S. Attorney ponders bid against GOP Senator Pete Domenici. That and more political news of the day in today’s Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.
It’s something of an open secret on the Hill, but Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) temper can be so explosive, it tends to alienate friend and foe alike. Consider yesterday’s brouhaha over the new immigration-reform package.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) hasn’t spent much time in the Capitol this year as he seeks the GOP presidential nomination. But one of his rare appearances this week provided a pretty salty exchange with a fellow Republican.
During a meeting Thursday on immigration legislation, McCain and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) got into a shouting match when Cornyn started voicing concerns about the number of judicial appeals that illegal immigrants could receive, according to multiple sources — both Democrats and Republicans — who heard firsthand accounts of the exchange from lawmakers who were in the room.
Apparently, McCain accused Cornyn of raising petty objections, and Cornyn accused McCain of having dropped in without taking part in the negotiations. “F**k you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room,” McCain reportedly shouted. Paul Kane added that McCain also “used a curse word associated with chickens.”
Oddly enough, these outbursts are not terribly uncommon for McCain. Several years ago, Jake Tapper reported on an incident in which McCain got into a shouting match with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). Eventually, a seething McCain told his GOP colleague, “You know, senator, I thought your problem was that you don’t listen. But that’s not it at all. Your problem is that you’re a f**king jerk.”
More recently, former Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.), who served with McCain on the Senate Armed Services Committee and on Republican policy committees, said, “I have witnessed incidents where he has used profanity at colleagues and exploded at colleagues. He would disagree about something and then explode. It was incidents of irrational behavior. We’ve all had incidents where we have gotten angry, but I’ve never seen anyone act like that.”
Keep in mind, we’re talking about McCain dropping F-bombs on Republicans.
I guess this helps explain why McCain hasn’t exactly racked up the Senate GOP endorsements for his presidential campaign.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, as usual, is disgusted. This time, he’s blasting the field of 2008 presidential candidates who, Gingrich believes, are “demeaning the presidency” by jumping through pointless hoops.
“We have shrunk our political process to this pathetic dance in which people spend an entire year raising money in order to offer non-answers, so they can memorize what their consultants and focus groups said would work,” Gingrich said.
In a speech to the John Locke Foundation, a conservative think tank, the prospective Republican candidate said he will not consider running until he has created a wave of reform. […]
“This idea of demeaning the presidency by reducing it to being a game show contest … is wrong for America, and I would never participate in it,” he said.
In principle, I don’t entirely disagree. The process can be silly at times, and watching 10 candidates offer sound-bite answers — when they’re not raising their hands to yes/no questions — can start to appear a little demeaning.
But for Newt Gingrich to complain about politicians offering “non-answers,” crafted by “consultants and focus groups,” is rich. Good ol’ Newt practically invented this style of politicking. After all, how did Gingrich and Frank Luntz put together the “Contract with America”? They relied on the advice of “consultants and focus groups,” which told him what would work.
For that matter, wasn’t it Gingrich who circulated a memo called “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control” to incoming GOP freshmen in 1995? The document included a list of words Gingrich wanted House Republicans to memorize because consultants and focus groups said they would work.
It’s a little late for Newt to complain about an atmosphere he helped create.