During a recent major terrorism conference I organized, I hired a well-connected Republican consultant to help me fill out administration participation in the meeting. Considering that we were meeting amidst the Katrina disaster, my consultant did fairly well.
I hope my colleague, Afshin Molavi, is correct about brewing reform and civil society development in Iran. I’ve heard a lot over the years that Iran’s theocratic rulers are very far from the democracy-pining average folks.
Just got a note from the foreign policy team at the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, and the Ray Suarez interview has been pushed back one more day. It will air tomorrow night. I’ll be watching it in Santa Fe, where I am heading now to give a couple of talks.
From this morning’s Washington Post: Top White House aides are privately discussing the future of Karl Rove, with some expressing doubt that President Bush can move beyond the damaging CIA leak case as long as his closest political strategist remains in the administration.
According to a new CBS poll, President Bush now has only a 35% approval rating, and a whopping 57% disapproval rating. Richard Nixon in November 1973, at roughly the same point in the second term where Bush finds himself, had a 27% approval rating.
Tonight, President and Mrs. Bush will be hosting a very upper crust, ritzy dinner for the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall. I am not going, but I am impressed that Mary Cheney is taking her partner, Heather Poe, to the dinner. TWN applauds this.
I reported earlier that Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Chief of Staff at the State Department the last four years, will be on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer in a fascinating interview with Ray Suarez. However, I have just heard from the foreign policy producers, and the segment will run TOMORROW, not tonight….
The Brent Scowcroft profile and interview, “Breaking Ranks: What Turned Brent Scowcroft Against the Bush Administration?” by Jeffrey Goldberg has just been posted in full on the New Yorker website. If you haven’t read it, you can read it here. — Steve Clemons Ed. note: Thanks to NG at Oxford for the tip.
I just posted this entry over at TPM Cafe. I found President Bush’s positive commentary about the IMF and the Argentina bail-out surprising and out of character given the intensity of the 1997-98 debate about IMF replenishment.
American Enterprise Institute Resident Scholar Norm Ornstein hits the Alito ball out of the park with a powerful, incisive op-ed today in Roll Call. Essentially, Ornstein makes the key point that Alito is hostile to Congress and its role in our system of government.
