by Frank James
A quick guided tour of some of the morning's most important or interesting, or both, Washington-related stories.
Scores of people in Karachi were killed when two bombs exploded near the truck carrying Benazir Bhutto, the opposition leader and former Pakistani premier, who had just returned to her native land after eight years in exile. She was safe but the attack underscored the instability of the nation that is a key ally to the U.S. in the war on terror.
President Bush's veto of the State Child Health Insurance Program was sustained in the House as the Democratic leadership in the chamber fell 13 lawmakers short of having enough votes to override the veto. House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi vowed to send another bill to the president in a matter of weeks.
As he campaigns in South Carolina, Sen. John McCain is frequently reminded of the ruthless campaign that was waged against him in 2000 on then Gov. George Bush's behalf, with South Carolinians approaching him now to apologize for the smear campaign against him.
On the second day of his confirmation hearings, Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey found the atmosphere tenser than it was the first day as Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee tried to push him on the issue of whether waterboarding constituted torture.
Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign massive campaign war chest has been improbably enlarged by donations from low-income Chinese immigrant workers who can least afford such contributions and in some cases feel pressured by neighborhood associations to make them.
As thousands of politically active evangelical Christians prepared to meet in Washington, they confronted the fact that none of the Republican presidential candidates gives them great confidence in terms of being the person to carry forward the Religious Right's agenda.
The U.S. military was able to successfully bring Shiite and Sunni leaders from southwest Baghdad together to broker an agreement for the end of sectarian violence and attacks on U.S. troops.
Many House and Senate Democrats reacted negatively to a bipartisan Senate compromise on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that would give retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that provided consumer records and access to their facilities to federal counterterrorism agents.
Boeing said it has solved most of the problems with the virtual border fence it's building for the Homeland Security Department, flaws that delayed the project to the point where the agency threatened to pull its contract if Boeing didn't quickly fix the problems.
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Comments
From the Clinton fundraising scandal story referenced above.
"Dishwashers, waiters and others whose jobs and dilapidated home addresses seem to make them unpromising targets for political fundraisers are pouring $1,000 and $2,000 contributions into Clinton's campaign treasury. In April, a single fundraiser in an area long known for its gritty urban poverty yielded a whopping $380,000. When Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) ran for president in 2004, he received $24,000 from Chinatown.
At this point in the presidential campaign cycle, Clinton has raised more money than any candidate in history. Those dishwashers, waiters and street stall hawkers are part of the reason. And Clinton's success in gathering money from Chinatown's least-affluent residents stems from a two-pronged strategy: mutually beneficial alliances with powerful groups, and appeals to the hopes and dreams of people now consigned to the margins. ...
The Times examined the cases of more than 150 donors who provided checks to Clinton after fundraising events geared to the Chinese community. One-third of those donors could not be found using property, telephone or business records. Most have not registered to vote, according to public records.
And several dozen were described in financial reports as holding jobs -- including dishwasher, server or chef -- that would normally make it difficult to donate amounts ranging from $500 to the legal maximum of $2,300 per election.
Of 74 residents of New York's Chinatown, Flushing, the Bronx or Brooklyn that The Times called or visited, only 24 could be reached for comment."
(LA Times)
Posted by: Bruce | October 19, 2007 2:00 PM
From the Karl Rove engineered smear job against McCain story referenced above:
"CHARLESTON, S.C. — When Senator John McCain and his wife campaign in South Carolina these days, people pull them aside to apologize for what happened during the presidential primary here in 2000.
[...]
A smear campaign during the primary in February 2000 here had many in South Carolina falsely believing that Mr. McCain’s wife, Cindy, was a drug addict and that the couple’s adopted daughter, Bridget, was the product of an illicit union. Mr. McCain’s patriotism, mental well-being and sexuality were also viciously called into question.
[...]
As the McCains traveled throughout the state that year, they began to feel, aides said, as if they were being pelted by hail from an underground whispering campaign of unknown origin — a telephone call from a push pollster here, a nasty anonymous flier there — that they could barely keep pace with each attack.
[...]
At a town-hall-style meeting in Spartanburg after the advertisement ran, a woman stood up, her voice shaking. She recalled how her 13-year-old son had received a phone call from a push pollster calling Mr. McCain a liar and a cheat.
[...]
Even as Mr. McCain’s plane was aloft over the state from New Hampshire, Bush supporters had taken to the airwaves, accusing Mr. McCain of having accomplished little as a senator and suggesting he was out of step with conservative South Carolina.
“I remember thinking,” said Roy Fletcher, who was Mr. McCain’s deputy campaign manager, “these people knew they were going to get their butts pounded and they already had this attack planned.”
[...]
People in some areas of South Carolina began to receive phone calls in which self-described pollsters would ask, “Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?”
It was a reference to Bridget, who was adopted as a baby from an orphanage in Bangladesh and is darker skinned than the rest of the McCain family. Richard Hand, a professor at Bob Jones University, sent an e-mail message to “fellow South Carolinians” telling recipients that Mr. McCain had “chosen to sire children without marriage.”
Literature began to pepper the windshields of cars at political events suggesting that Mr. McCain had committed treason while a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, that he was mentally unstable after years in a P.O.W. camp, that he was the homosexual candidate and that Mrs. McCain, who had admitted to abusing prescription drugs years earlier, was an addict."
The Republic Party hacks who did this to Senator John mcCain, one of their own, are the kind of people that Bruce supports.
Posted by: BC | October 20, 2007 5:34 PM