How many companies are taking public bailout money and simultaneously lobbying the government to cut the strings that the money came with?
Howard Dean tells TPM Election Central that Senate Dems were just following Obama’s lead on handling Joe Lieberman. “He called the shots, and that’s fine,” Dean says.
Video of Senate Dems public love fest/reconciliation:
You wouldn’t expect a Republican former secretary of state to embrace the leading Democratic contenders for the job, but in an appearance on MSNBC this afternoon Lawrence Eagleburger went off, reserving faint praise only for Hillary Clinton:
Alaska has resumed its vote counting in the Senate race, and Ted Stevens (R-AK) is now trailing by more than 2,000 votes. It’s a large enough margin — at this point — that an automatic recount would not be triggered.
More soon.
An odd report out of South Texas where a Willacy County grand jury has apparently indicted Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. But this doesn’t look like the comeuppance so many have hoped for. I can’t piece together from the news reports what the precise allegations are but they don’t seem to implicate Cheney or Gonzales directly in any wrongdoing. In fact a little googling shows the district attorney down there has been embroiled in one controversy after another, including getting arrested himself at one point, though he was later cleared. So this one may be entertaining but not for the reasons the headlines might suggest.
Late Update: Will Bunch has some background on the federal detention center in Willacy County that is ostensibly at the heart of this indictment.
The AP calls the Alaska Senate race for Mark Begich.
John McCain will reportedly run for re-election in 2010. That and the day’s other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.