My friend Doug Bandow (note that the Cato Institute has already made him a “former senior fellow”) has recently admitted to taking payment from Jack Abramoff to write favorably about Abramoff’s clients. Doug has resigned from the Cato Institute and been forthright that this whole thing was a “lapse of judgement.” Truth in advertising.
Murray Waas has just published a long, in-depth piece in National Journal on new dimensions in the all important conversation between Bob Novak and Karl Rove in which Valerie Plame’s CIA identity was discussed.
In the year 2000, I was invited to a speech by the then Minister of Commerce, Industry and Energy about the ten industries of the future that Korea planned to invest heavily in.
John McCain has earned his Senate salary these last few months. Beating the White House is no easy feat, and yet his success and the success of others — as in the battle against John Bolton’s confirmation — is showing that the White House can be tackled and compelled to stand down.
Senator Dianne Feinstein asked the Congressional Research Service to sort out President Bush’s claim that before the Iraq invasion, his office and the Congress shared the “same intelligence.” To give you the punch line early, CRS’s answer to the President is that that is simply untrue.
The White House and various Congressional watchers are suggesting that a deal has been forged that accepts John McCain’s language that Americans and their agents will not engage in torture or inhuman treatment of prisoners.
Several people in high places, both in the State Department and in the United Nations, have commented to me that John Bolton really surprised them when he embarked on his new duties after moving into the Ambassador’s apartment at the Waldorf-Astoria.
I’m literally rushing to the gate, but check back in a few hours for a sneak peak at a major new article assessing John Bolton’s tenure thus far as the unconfirmed, recess-appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. It’s not yet on the American Prospect website, but I’ve got it. More later. . .
I had one of those special, memorable-for-all-time mornings today, jumping from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to Jericho to Ramallah. The afternoon had me back in Jerusalem, and now I’m sorting out what happened today in Tel Aviv.