Jim Gilmore has apparently decided that his chances of getting the GOP nomination aren't as good as Tom Tancredo's or Tommy Thompson's, since he's gotten out while the other two are among those still in the race:
Former Virginia Gov. James S. Gilmore III is dropping his underdog bid for the Republican presidential nomination today, he told The Politico in an interview.
Gilmore said he has been approached about running for Virginia governor a second time, and about running for U.S. Senate if Sen. John W. Warner (R) retires. Gilmore said he will consider both options. Reflecting his long-held interest in Old Dominion politics, he said he will start a political action committee to support Republicans running for the state senate and House of Delegate.
To me, it's the timing that's most interesting. What was to prevent him from staying in the race a few more months to see whether something changed? After all, with McCain on life support and Newt not yet in, he might have thought it worth his trouble to stay in the race, in case Fred Thompson faltered and a 'real conservative' was wanted. That's slim odds, but what else was there to do with his time?
My guess is that he wants to be in the 2008 Virginia Senate race early. With the moves by Congressman Tom Davis to prepare his bid and people talking about conservatives such as Eric Cantor or Bob Goodlatte, he might have decided to make sure that he's one of the first out of the gate. And he couldn't do that while running for President.
It could be that he wants to be Governor again of course, but the next gubernatorial race is not until 2009.
Senator Reed says it looks like David Petraeus is ready to quit. (After all, that's all the Democrats seem to mean when they say 'change course.')
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said his impression from a conversation with General David Petraeus was that the leader of U.S. troops in Iraq “seemed very eager to come forward as quickly as possible with a new direction and policy.”
Reed, the co-sponsor of legislation that would require President Bush to withdraw combat troops from Iraq by April of next year, recently made his tenth trip to Iraq and spoke with Petraeus, who is slated to report to Congress in September on the progress of the war.
The senator said, in an interview with C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” show that is expected to air Sunday, that he was surprised that Petraeus went out of his way to say that he might have something to say in August and not wait until September.
Somebody better tell the White House, because that doesn't seem to jive with what they're saying. Tony Snow for example, gave no hint of this the other day.
Congressional Democrats have complained privately that Petraeus has acted at times, like a cheerleader for the war effort. They have argued that as a military person, he should prosecute the war and leave policy decisions to the elected. Having brought his purported opinions into the debate (again), they better not complain if he comes to Washington again to set the record straight.
It's worth noting that Petraeus's tone as relayed by Reed is rather different from what he told the Christian Science Monitor on the record a few days ago:
The release of a White House report Thursday, showing the Iraqi government had only made "satisfactory" progress on eight of 18 benchmarks, may accelerate a congressional push for a midterm accounting, with some critics saying July is the new September. Gen. David Petraeus is due to report to Congress on progress in Iraq in September.
But in an interview, General Petraeus insists, "September is September from my perspective."
"What the ambassador [to Iraq, Ryan Crocker] and I will do in September is to provide a forthright, comprehensive assessment of the situation at the time and provide discussion of the potential consequences of various courses of action that might be considered," he says...
Progress, says Petraeus, is not limited to this area south of Baghdad, but throughout neighboring provinces. "The dynamic out there that is very surprising in the past several months is the increasing rejection by the Sunni population of Al Qaeda ideology," he says.
The prospect of any hasty removal of US troops has him concerned. "If we pull out there will be greatly increased sectarian violence, humanitarian concerns.... You don't know what could happen in terms of dangerous conflicts, what could happen along the Kurdish/Shiite/Sunni fault lines, or how [Iraq's] neighbors will react."
Is Petraeus playing both sides against the middle -- telling a powerful member of the Armed Services Committee what he thinks he wants to hear, while he tells the White House another? If so, he was sloppy -- since Reed revealed it. Further, Petraeus will look silly issuing a finding in August (either official or de facto) after he and the White House have made clear so many times that the next assessment will be in September.
Or was Senator Reed projecting -- or reading more into what Petraeus said? Given the dramatic contradiction between Reed's rendition and Petraeus in the Christian Science Monitor, I have to think that's more likely.
Almost every time President Bush has defended his new strategy in Iraq this year, he has invoked the name of the top commander, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus.
Speaking in Cleveland on Tuesday, Bush called Petraeus his "main man" -- a "smart, capable man who gives me his candid advice." And on Thursday, as the president sought to stave off a revolt among congressional Republicans, he said he wanted "to wait to see what David has to say. I trust David Petraeus, his judgment."
I'm sure the President believes he has a good sense of the general's thinking. But maybe Petraeus is playing his own game:
Some of Petraeus's military comrades worry that the general is being set up by the Bush administration as a scapegoat if conditions in Iraq fail to improve. "The danger is that Petraeus will now be painted as failing to live up to expectations and become the fall guy for the administration," one retired four-star officer said.
Octavia Nasr, CNN's senior editor for Arab affairs, said the videotape does not appear to be new.
The environment shown is similar to that on releases made before the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, in which bin Laden is seen in the company of some of the hijackers, Nasr said.
Some of the backdrops also resemble those shown in videos when the U.S. attacks against the Taliban in Afghanistan began not long after the 9/11 attacks, she added.
The last time a recording of bin Laden was made public it was an audiotape, with an Arabic transcript, released on June 30, 2006.
We'll know more over time. But assuming Osama is alive, he would realize the speculation this would prompt.
There are other factors besides death that could explain this: he's too well-hidden to risk making a new tape, or he wants his next appearance to appear even more spectacular, for example.
OK -- let's be kind. Harry Reid 'answered the question' the way politicians traditionally do -- by restating a related point that he'd prefer us to focus on.
Folks on the Left are angry that conservatives can't accept Reid's response, and they see that Tapper question as over the line of journalism, and into 'advocacy' territory. ThinkProgress points us to a more complete answer to the question of what happens in Iraq after we leave. They say that:
[Getting U.S. troops out of Iraq’s multiple conflicts and positioning troops in neighboring countries puts the United States in a better position to]
prevent Iraq’s multiple sectarian conflicts from spreading beyond its borders and gives Iraq and its neighbors the right incentive to help resolve Iraq’s internal conflicts.
I took a longer excerpt than ThinkProgress, because I think the bracketed text is useful. Among other things, it helps us realize that this plan includes redeploying troops within the region. That probably includes Saudi Arabia, which would allow Osama bin Laden again to use the presence of US troops there as a reason for jihad.
More broadly, the Reid view seems to be:
U.S. Policies Must Accept the Reality of Iraq’s Fragmentation
Iraq’s leaders are fundamentally at odds over what Iraq is, how power should be distributed, and who should control the nation’s oil wealth. To advance its own national security interests, the United States needs to come to grips with this new reality of Iraq’s fragmentation and respond by diversifying our military, diplomatic, and development presence in and around Iraq. We need to build on the efforts of the Bush administration to put more emphasis on provincial and local leadership rather than on working primarily with the national government.
The United States should mitigate the increasingly violent fragmentation in Iraq by ceasing the unconditional arming and training of Iraq’s national security forces until a political consensus and sustainable political solution is reached... Training and equipping Iraqi security forces risks making Iraq’s civil war even bloodier and more vicious than it already is today. It also increases the dangers that these weapons will one day be turned against the United States and its allies in the region.
Furthermore, the United States should discard its plan to build the world’s largest embassy in Baghdad and instead make plans to reassign diplomatic and intelligence personnel throughout Iraq and neighboring countries with adequate protection. We should encourage Middle East leaders and the United Nations to continue working with Iraq’s national leaders to peacefully settle their differences over power-sharing, but the United States should not unilaterally continue to try to force an immediate resolution of Iraq’s political disputes.
Where security conditions permit and where it is practically possible, the United States should reassign U.S. personnel to secure consulates around Iraq in order to assist in local efforts to address Iraq’s problems more effectively. The localities of Iraq are where politics shape Iraq’s future, not in the isolation of the Green Zone. Finally, to fulfill a key moral obligation to the Iraqi people, the United States should increase the number of Iraqi refugees and internally displaced persons it might accept annually from the current level of 7,000 to 100,000.
I find it ironic to speak of a 'moral obligation to the Iraqi people,' when the essence of the plan seems to be 'Iraq is hopeless, so wait for the civil war and genocide to shake themselves out and then deal with whoever's left standing.'
I'd also argue that to the extent that Democrats argue for US troops to remain in Iraq to fight Al Qaeda, this scenario renders that goal pretty difficult. After all, how do we find and eliminate the anti-US/Al Qaeda terrorists among the warring factions, without getting involved in the civil war?
As has been clear for a while, Democrats want to frame the Iraq question as 'do you want US troops to continue dying?' The answer to that is self-evident for anyone. The broader question ought to be 'how do we best serve US interests in Iraq and the region.' The answer to that question for many Americans might well be 'withdraw.' But given the dangers associated with the collapse of Iraq -- one essentially acknowledged here -- we ought to at least have the debate.
Mullah Dudallah promises new and more spectacular attacks against the US and the West. He promises that they will be bigger than the attacks in the UK, which led to zero injuries. So there's at least a decent shot he'll be right about that.
Taken with the other news -- the report that Musharraf has OKed US attacks within Pakistan's borders, and his promise to eliminate extremism, and with Dick Cheney's surprise visit still in recent memory -- I wonder if things might not be coming to a head in Pakistan. At least, it seems that the US and Al Qaeda are taking actions that make it harder by the day to run a middle course between the two.
Some good news on the tax cutting front: Last week lawmakers approved an 8.9 percentage point reduction in the corporate income tax rate. Too bad the tax cutters are Germans, not Americans.
There's a trend here. At least 25 developed nations have adopted Reaganite corporate income tax rate cuts since 2001. The U.S. is conspicuously not one of them. Vietnam has recently announced it is cutting its corporate rate to 25% from 28%. Singapore has approved a corporate tax cut to 18% from 20% to compete with low-tax Hong Kong's rate of 17.5%, and Northern Ireland is making a bid to slash its corporate tax rate to 12.5% to keep pace with the same low rate in the prosperous Republic of Ireland. Even in France, of all places, new President Nicolas Sarkozy has proposed reducing the corporate tax rate to 25% from 34.4%.
'Robin Hood' politics is preventing the US from promoting economic growth by instituting the same type of reforms. Of course, it doesn't seem right now as if we need to do all that much to encourage economic growth -- so low is unemployment. Perhaps conservatives ought to save this for a presidential election year?
Iran will not suddenly make nice. Al Qaeda will not call the whole thing off...
There is enormous concern in the region. We don't talk about that very much, but I was having a conversation last night -- a fascinating one -- with a senior Arab diplomat who is very worried that the United States could precipitously cut and run -- not his words -- but leave, and that, he says, would leave a vacuum and nature abhors a vacuum and he is so worried, he says, that this conflict will spread; that Turkey and Iran and others will get involved - and it just gets worse...
Between Oct. 1, 2006, and June 30, 2007, Border Patrol agents made 682,468 apprehensions along the southwestern border, compared to 894,496 in the same period the previous year [that's a 24% drop -- the Editor]. The greatest decrease occurred in the Yuma, Ariz., and Del Rio, Texas, sectors.
In a statement, CBP said this drop indicates a decline in illegal cross-border activity. CBP spokesman Michael Friel said increased surveillance on the southern border, coupled with the decrease in apprehensions, gives CBP a good picture of activity levels.
"You would think, logically, [that] additional resources would lead to an increase in apprehensions," Friel said. "But we've increased situational awareness and apprehensions have gone down. It's fair to say that is a good indication of decreased overall activity."
But T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, was skeptical.
"I think it's far more likely that there's been a shift," Bonner said. "Any time you put pressure in one area, there will be a shift. Smugglers are interested in getting their cargo across the border, whether it is human cargo or contraband. They're not going to do a frontal assault on our area of greatest strength."
Apprehensions can drop for a variety of reasons: fewer immigrants might be trying to cross, or they might be crossing via some other route -- or something else might have changed:
Both Bonner and Friel agreed that a 48 percent decrease in the level of apprehensions of non-Mexican nationals -- called "other-than-Mexicans" by CBP -- was the result of a policy change last August. Before then, other-than-Mexicans, if caught illegally crossing the border, were given notices to appear in court and released into the United States. Most did not show up for their court date.
Friel said the end of the "catch-and-release" policy for non-Mexicans has been a deterrent. "DHS has expanded expedited removal, allowing us to apprehend and remove nationals from countries other than Mexico," he said. "The end state is that when you're able to apprehend and remove someone, the story gets out."
Bonner said previous apprehension numbers for other-than-Mexicans were inflated by the fact that many turned themselves in voluntarily in order to get a permission slip to be in the country until their court date.
"Now they're the most desperate because there's a big difference between being sent 15 yards and 1,500 miles," he said. "They are the ones taking every conceivable measure to ensure they don't get apprehended."
It's not clear to me from the article how much of the overall drop can be attributed to the fall in the number of other-than-Mexican apprehensions. Also, read the full article to get the good news about how the reduction in apprehensions is leading to enhanced efforts against drug smuggling.
But if other-than-Mexican apprehensions are down, is it simply because those immigrants are no longer turning themselves in (as Bonner implies), or because they have been legitimately deterred? After all, if you're going to spend a lot of time, money, and effort to get from Guatemala to California, and you expect to be returned right away -- maybe you'll decide it's not worth the effort.
This is like beating a drum. Every day there's a new story about the inability of Congress to move forward on legislative priorities -- half the time due to opposition from the GOP, but the other half due to poor management or Democratic infighting. Today it's the recommendations of the 9/11 commission:
Senior House Democrats and aides are expressing frustration with the prolonged negotiations over legislation that would implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
The legislation, passed by the House and Senate in January, likely will go to a conference committee next week to reconcile differences between the two bills, according to two Democratic lawmakers. The drawn-out pre-conference has resulted from a bevy of jurisdictional disputes between House and Senate committee chairmen.
And while we're at it, let's recall that the legislation doesn't even meet the promise of Democrats to implement all the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. It fails to reform the committee oversight system in Congress, leaving DHS and other agencies answering to many masters, rather than leaving direction and accountability in the hands of a few leaders. It is a recipe for failure.
Recommendation: Congressional oversight for intelligence-and counterterrorism-is now dysfunctional. Congress should address this problem. We have considered various alternatives: A joint committee on the old model of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy is one. A single committee in each house of Congress, combining authorizing and appropriating authorities, is another...
The leaders of the Department of Homeland Security now appear before 88 committees and subcommittees of Congress. One expert witness (not a member of the administration) told us that this is perhaps the single largest obstacle impeding the department's successful development. The one attempt to consolidate such committee authority, the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, may be eliminated. The Senate does not have even this.
Congress needs to establish for the Department of Homeland Security the kind of clear authority and responsibility that exist to enable the Justice Department to deal with crime and the Defense Department to deal with threats to national security. Through not more than one authorizing committee and one appropriating subcommittee in each house, Congress should be able to ask the secretary of homeland security whether he or she has the resources to provide reasonable security against major terrorist acts within the United States and to hold the secretary accountable for the department's performance.
Recommendation: Congress should create a single, principal point of oversight and review for homeland security. Congressional leaders are best able to judge what committee should have jurisdiction over this department and its duties. But we believe that Congress does have the obligation to choose one in the House and one in the Senate, and that this committee should be a permanent standing committee with a nonpartisan staff.
None of this is included in the bill that the Democrats falsely promise will implement all the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
Guess they're keeping all the promises they meant to keep, though.
I notice that the ESPYs are coming up in a few days, and more people are reaching my page in search of Jimmy Valvano's speech at the 1993 show. I don't really watch the ESPYs, but that speech touched me and many others who've lost a loved one to cancer. So I'll post it and think about my mom -- who thought Valvano was fantastic:
Majority AP covered a little while ago the hiring of a former pharmaceutical lobbyist to run the shop of Nancy Pelosi's second-in-command:
In 1999, Lierman, then a lobbyist with Capitol Associates Inc., made a $25,000 low-interest loan to U.S. Representative James Moran, D-VA8., who he described as “a dear, close friend.”
“Five days later,” the Washington Post reported, “Moran signed on as one of more than 70 co-sponsors to a bill sought by a Lierman client, drugmaker Schering-Plough, which sought to extend the patent on its allergy product Claritin. Consumer groups were lobbying against the bill, saying it would be costly for consumers and would delay access to cheaper, generic drugs.”
The Post further reported, “Moran also sent a letter to moderate Democrats seeking their support for the bill.”
Lierman came tantalizingly close to being elected to Congress himself, losing by just 5 percentage points to longtime Republican Rep. Connie Morella in 2000 in Maryland's 8th Congressional District.
Surging in the polls, Lierman was closing in fast until a newspaper reported that Lierman had given his longtime friend Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) a $25,000 loan days before Moran signed on to a bill extending a patent on a drug for which Lierman was a lobbyist.
Although the loan was later cleared by the House Ethics Committee and the Justice Department, the incident cost Lierman in the midst of a tight race.
...Advocates of withdrawal would like to believe that Afghanistan is now a central front in the war on terror but that Iraq is not; believing that doesn't make it so. They would like to minimize the chances of disaster following a U.S. withdrawal: of full-blown civil war, conflicts spreading beyond Iraq's borders, or genocide. They would have us believe that someone or something will ride to the rescue: the United Nations, an Islamic peacekeeping force, an invigorated diplomatic process. They like to say that by withdrawing U.S. troops, they will "end the war."
Conditions in Iraq today are terrible, but they could become "way, way worse," as the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker, a career Foreign Service officer, recently told the New York Times. If American men and women were dying in July in a clearly futile cause, it would indeed be immoral to wait until September to order their retreat. But given the risks of withdrawal, the calculus cannot be so simple. The generals who have devised a new strategy believe they are making fitful progress in calming Baghdad, training the Iraqi army and encouraging anti-al-Qaeda coalitions. Before Congress begins managing rotation schedules and ordering withdrawals, it should at least give those generals the months they asked for to see whether their strategy can offer some new hope.
The Post does not add -- but ought to -- that this is really a sham by the Democrats anyway, who have shown that they're brave enough to mock and browbeat the President, but too timid to do what they profess to believe in. As Captain Ed says:
If the Democrats wanted a withdrawal, they would simply cut off the funding for the deployment. No one disputes that they have that power -- but the Democrats don't want to take responsibility for what comes afterwards. It's not wishful thinking but political expediency that drives their efforts this summer.
In a Virginia that seems to be turning purple (with two straight wins by Democratic gubernatorial candidates), Tom Davis probably represents the GOP candidate of the future. He is moderate, and he's from the DC suburbs. But is the Virginia GOP ready for someone so different from Virginia's last GOP Senator -- George Allen?
Davis, who is politically moderate and from Northern Virginia, is considered unlikely to escape a nomination challenge from the ideological right.
Case in point, the Traditional Values Council sent out a press release Wednesday with this blistering headline: “Waxman-Davis Bill Opens Door to Requiring Protections For Wide Range of Bizarre Sexual Acts.”
Former Gov. Jim Gilmore (R), who is currently running for president, is the candidate many Virginia conservatives hope will jump in the race if Warner retires.
Republican Virginia Reps. Eric Cantor and Bob Goodlatte also are mentioned as possibilities.
In Virginia, nominees are chosen either by party primary or convention — a decision that is the incumbent’s to make. In cases where there is no incumbent, the choice falls to the state party’s central committee.
Conventional wisdom holds that Davis likely would fare much better in a primary scenario than at a convention, which would be dominated by social conservatives.
“If it’s a convention, I think that Davis is in big trouble,” said one GOP consultant who is closely aligned with conservatives. “His money advantage is not all that useful at a convention.”
While Democrats in both chambers have repeatedly blamed Republicans for obstructing their agenda in the 110th Congress, congressional sources say there is escalating tension between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on energy legislation.
Reid told senior lawmakers on a conference call late last month that Pelosi could be making a mistake by not passing the energy bill that recently passed the Senate and instead moving ahead with a House plan that will open up an intra-party battle, according to one person on the call.
A spokesman for Reid declined to comment...
One of the key aspects to the Democrats’ energy bill is a ramp-up in fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks to 35 miles per gallon by model year 2020.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat and an ally of the auto industry, has been vehemently opposed to an increase in automotive efficiency standards, and has sparred openly with Pelosi over the future of the nation’s energy policy.
Hoyer said yesterday the House may punt the issue until bicameral discussions, but predicted that a final conference report would include language on auto efficiency standards similar to what passed the Senate.
But Dingell could be the lead House negotiator in a conference committee. And Reid on the conference call suggested that House leaders could be erring by negotiating with Dingell, the source said.
When Republicans held the majority, it was difficult to pass major legislation over the opposition of Dingell due to his tenacity and his skill in building coalitions on his priorities. It will be doubly difficult now that he is Chairman.
Not being especially interested in the David Vitter/Deborah Jeane Palfrey story, I haven't posted anything on it. And I guess I thought that while Vitter is undoubtedly (and appropriately) embarrassed about it, it's not the sort of thing that kills a Senate career. Put it this way: if I were a Louisiana voter, I would 'forgive.'
Novak writes (in his E-mail newsletter) that it won't be that simple:
Vitter: The admission by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) that before being elected to the Senate he was at some point a client of an infamous Washington escort service may appear to have little political significance for now. The senator does not face re-election until 2010, and his wife was apparently made aware of the situation long ago.
However, the matter will not rest there by any means. First of all, the accused madam involved -- Deborah Jeane Palfrey -- is going to trial and has announced she will subpoena Vitter. Her defense is that her service was not a prostitution ring, so the nature of Vitter's testimony, under oath, would be to show exactly what he did while using the "escort service" and how many times he did it. Vitter could avoid going into such lurid detail by taking the 5th Amendment (after all, solicitation is a crime), but that would also look very bad for him.
Second, this is not the first time Vitter's morals have been called into question. When he ran for Senate in 2004, his enemies brought up old accusations (from when he first ran for Congress) that he had had a year-long affair with a prostitute in the French Quarter of New Orleans.
Beyond that, tales about Vitter's behavior abound in Louisiana. Even if every single one is false, this revelation suddenly gives them new currency. In the future, Democrats will send mailings at the right times and exploit his weakness.
Unlike the embattled Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.), Vitter is a Republican. His base will be much harder to mollify when it comes to charges of wrongdoing. True, Jefferson is actually accused of malfeasance in office (bribery), but Republicans are always held to a higher standard by their own voters, who tend to place special value on family issues.
Democrats will have lots of fun with this. They may not be able to win the governor's race, but they could make it more competitive by using Vitter to embarrass Jindal. Vitter cannot step down right now even if he wants to, because he would be replaced by a Democrat. If he wants he leave, he has to wait until Jindal becomes governor...
It sounds like a very difficult position for a man that Novak makes sound like a cut-rate version of Bill Clinton. When you think about it, it's particularly odd that this would be a real problem in the state that produced Edwin Edwards, David Duke, Earl Long, and even John Breaux -- who was well known as a 'lady's man,' during his Senate career.
Depending on how long Palfrey stays in the news -- particularly through trial and possible appeal -- this could be an even greater problem than it currently is.
"Right now, I could kill George Bush," she said at the Adam's Mark Hotel and Conference Center in Dallas. "No, I don't mean that. How could you nonviolently kill somebody? I would love to be able to do that."
About half the crowd gave her a standing ovation after she called for Mr. Bush's removal from power.
"The Muslim world right now is suffering beyond belief," she said.
"Unless the president of the United States is held responsible for what he's doing and what he has done, there's no one in the Muslim world who will forgive him."
Does ending the mass-murdering regime of Saddam Hussein and attempting to bring representative government to the Middle East count for nothing?
