Last night, in a speech before a Washington power crowd, Hu Jintao mentioned democracy nine times. Nine times — and his security team and intelligence/police forces did nothing about it. Jiang Lijun, however, mentions democracy in a draft, unsent email and is sentenced to four years in prison.
THE DECIDER IS DOWN TO 33% APPROVAL, and in a Fox News poll no less. Rumsfeld is down. Condi Rice is up. The good thing about new Bush Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten is that I’m sure he can count.
The last time I invested some serious time in what was percolating in the Fitzgerald investigation of the White House leak of Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA role, the best I was able to get was to confirm that Karl Rove was “enthusiastically” cooperating with Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation and to confirm that Rove had helped lead…
I’ve not been real high on Washington Post editorials lately, but this one on Hu Jintao’s visit gets half-way to some important issues.
The Washington Post has run an important piece this morning on the rapidly increasing year on year costs of the Iraq War. Rather than becoming less expensive each year, American costs have increased, in constant dollars, each year.
My email has been overflowing today with comments and reactions about what I have written and said in a number of radio interviews about Iran. The comments on TWN and emails have been very helpful.
Evelyn Iritani of the Los Angeles Times wrote an interesting piece on Rob Portman’s departure as U.S. Trade Representative to serve as Joshua Bolten’s successor at the Office of Management and Budget. Susan Schwab, who is now one of three Deputy USTRs, will be succeeding Portman as America’s third female U.S.
Seymour Hersh’s article on Bush’s plan for war with Iran has helped confirm the worst suspicions of those on the left scared of another neocon-like and neocon-led war in the Middle East and has bolstered some on the far right who were afraid that the White House had become too weak to take on the…
For those who have the time and interest, I’ll be speaking with Al Franken today at 2:30 pm about what’s brewing with Iran. More later.
John Bellinger is the best that it gets in the Bush administration. As I’ve written before, there is a multiple personality reality in any presidential administration, and the trick is to try and make sure that the “dominant personality” of the administration gets the nation on what is mostly a constructive, enlightened course.
