by Frank James
A quick guided tour of some of the morning's most important, most interesting (or both) Washington-related stories.
President Bush is set to announce Michael Mukasey, a law-and-order conservative and retired judge who has received Democratic support in the past, as his choice for attorney general, succeeding the controversial Alberto Gonzales whose last day was Friday.
U.S. ambassador to the Iraq, Ryan Crocker, criticized the bureaucratic delays facing Iraqis seeking asylum in the U.S., including those at risk from insurgents because they helped the U.S., and urged in a cable that the process be greatly speeded up.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned that he would advise President Bush to veto Democratic legislation that would require U.S. troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan to spend as much time home as they do deployed, calling it a "backdoor " way to speed up a troop drawdown.
The Federal Reserve's expected interest-rate cut this week isn't likely to turnaround consumer sentiment or undo the continuing damage from the subprime mortgage crisis.
With the failure of comprehensive immigration legislation behind them, lawmakers in Congress are introducing legislation piecemeal, including a Democratic proposal that would give conditional legal status to young illegal immigrants and Republican proposals to prevent illegal immigrants from receiving federal benefits.
Immigration enforcement officials are seeing more Cubans being smuggled into the U.S. and would like to crack down on the funding source, Cuban Americans but are bumping up against that community's political clout.
Wikipedia, the do-it-yourself online encyclopedia, has become a place where supporters and opponents of presidential candidates fight over their political biographies such as whether Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is a conservative, moderate or liberal Republican.
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Comments
Well, Obama's team should enjoy the attention while they have it, because he isn't going to win the nomination.
Hillary is pulling out ahead. Let me say I am not an Obama fan but I am not a Hillary fan either. It just seems clear that Obama is too much of a
risk for voters to take.
Young, liberal, inexperienced.
This may not be such a bad thing for Obama. Because whoever wins in 2008 is going to have to deal with the huge mess the Bushies are putting together , a mess that could lead to the next Prez only lasting one term. The deficit will continue to be a problem, leading to likely tax increases. The Iraq war will be going full speed ahead with 130,000 troops or more, perhaps necessitating a draft or, equally problematic for 2012 re-election, a drawdown followed by a huge meltdown in Iraq and the Middle East. Either way, the Prez gets blamed. Immigration and universal health care will continue to rile people up and any solution will lose votes. There may be a recession as some have predicted...Presidents always get blamed for recessions.
A perfect recipe for a failed first term for the Dem Prez followed by a Republican resurgence.
Courtesy of Bush and Co.
They must be laughing.
Posted by: helena | September 17, 2007 10:07 AM
Ryan Crocker does not seem to understand the true feeling of the Administration about the Iraqi people. "They are just towel heads and there are too many of them anyway" Sometmes "camel jocky" or "sand n word" is used instead of "towel head". It is unlikely that many of these inferior people will be admitted to the US. We pay very little attention to the wars effect on them because they should be grateful to us.
Posted by: c. perry | September 17, 2007 5:58 PM