by Frank James
A quick guided tour of some of the morning's most important, most interesting, or both, Washington-related stories.
Pakistani security forces surrounded the home of former prime minister and political opponent Benazir Bhutto, preventing her from leading a planned rally, and reportedly arrested 5,000 members of her political party, increasing tensions in the country as it neared the end of its first week under the emergency rule declared by President Musharraf.
The Senate approved former federal judge Michael Mukasey late Thursday evening to be the attorney general with all but six Democrats voting against him because of his vagueness on whether waterboarding is torture. His swearing in to lead the Justice Department could come as soon as today.
The world is experiencing an oil shock different than those in the past which were caused by supply interruptions while the current trend of sharply rising oil prices is caused by dramatically higher global demand.
Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke told members of Congress that the Fed saw economic growth slowing during the remainder of this year but rebounding later in 2008 and warned that while the turmoil in credit markets would slow growth, so would rising oil prices which also raises inflation concerns.
The Senate voted, as expected, to overwhelmingly override President Bush's veto of the popular water resources legislation, following a similar lopsided vote in the House, and handing the president his first defeat in a veto battle.
The Army is finding it ever more difficult to find quality recruits because of the perceived and real risks of military service in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Former President George H.W. Bush defended the decision of his son, the current President Bush, to oust Saddam Hussein and occupy Iraq even though the elder Bush explicitly rejected such a decision when he was president.
A federal grand jury indicted on a corruption charges Bernard Kerik, New York City's former police commissioner and a friend of Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani who the former mayor recommended to be Homeland Security secretary.
Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate, appears to be gaining more traction in Iowa, looking like he could be one of the top three vote getters in the caucus there.
Sen. Hillary Clinton far outdistances her other senatorial colleagues seeking the presidency in the amount of earmarks she has successfully requested, with hers totaling $530 million compared with $100 million placed in spending bills by her closest earmark rival, Sen. Chris Dodd.
• 
• 
• 
Comments
Wow that phone call from Bush to Musharraf sure had an impact, huh?
Does anyone still believe that Musharraf wasn't complicit in the "terrorist" attack on Bhutto?
Posted by: AJF | November 9, 2007 9:02 AM
So, if Blackwater placed Hillary and Obama under house arrest, and arrested 5,000 of their supporters,saying they were doing it to fight possible terrorists, would that be OK with George Bush?
Would that be OK with you?
Posted by: San Miguel | November 9, 2007 9:58 AM
The biggest news of the day is what Dem Senator Joe Lieberman, Al Gore's running mate in 2000, said about his own party's base
"Mr. Lieberman was particularly critical of his 22 Democratic colleagues in the Senate who voted against the senator’s resolution to label Iran’s revolutionary guard corps and elite Quds Force a foreign terrorist entity. He accused liberal Web logs of peddling a “conspiracy theory,” namely that the legislation was a back door authorization for war. Also, without naming names, he said some of his colleagues who had voted against it said they agreed with its substance, but told the senator, “We don’t trust Bush. He’ll use this resolution as an excuse for war against Iran.”
Mr. Lieberman concluded, “There is something profoundly wrong-something that should trouble all of us — when we have elected Democratic officials who seem more worried about how the Bush administration might respond to Iran’s murder of our troops, than about the fact that Iran is murdering our troops.” He added, “There is likewise something profoundly wrong when we see candidates who are willing to pander to this politically paranoid, hyper-partisan sentiment in the Democratic base — even if it sends a message of weakness and division to the Iranian regime.”
from the NY Sun.
Posted by: Bruce | November 9, 2007 3:39 PM