Swamp Gas, July 4, 2007

by Frank James

A quick guided tour of some of the morning's most important or interesting (or both) Washington-related stories.

President Bush kept alive the possibility of a pardon for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, his former aide, whose prison sentence Bush commuted to keep the one-time chief of staff to Vice President Cheney from going to prison for his perjury conviction in the CIA leak case.

The Iraqi cabinet of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki agreed to a draft oil law that would determine how the nation's oil revenues were split, an essential step if a political reconciliation is to be reached.

Republican presidential candidates are trailing their Democratic counterparts in the campaign cash raised, a result of Republicans being less enthusiastic about their candidates than Democrats and a reversal of the usual dynamics of presidential campaigns.

Washington D.C.'s law restricts tall skyscrapers but a tight commercial real estate market has started a debate as to whether that should change with strong resistance in some quarters to remaking the city's renowned skyline.

Venezuela agreed to sell gasoline to Iran, a move which comes shortly after the Persian Gulf nation announced a rationing program that triggered riots.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has been playing down the record amount of campaign cash he has raised, talking more about the size of the crowds and the electorate's desire for change.

The U.S. and Russia said they would further reduce their nuclear arsenals by cutting the number of long-range missiles.

Hundreds of State Department employees were stunned to learn that they would be spending the summer far differently than they had planned, in places like New Orleans and Portsmouth, N.H. helping to reduce the backlog in passport applications.

Sen. Hillary Clinton's chief strategist was accused in a lawsuit of illegally monitoring the e-mail of a former associate his own competing firm.

The Transportation Security Agency boosted security at airports around the country for the July 4 holiday, in part because of the car bomb plot in Britain.