In defending Attorney General Alberto Gonzales against perjury claims, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell made the first public acknowledgment that President Bush authorized a series of secret surveillance activities under a single executive order in late 2001, the Washington Post reported. In a letter to Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., McConnell didn’t say what these "intelligence activities" included, other than that one of them was the warrantless surveillance of e-mails and phone calls that Bush confirmed in December 2005.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds is on the verge of breaking Hank Aaron’s homerun record — but his achievement is being overshadowed by allegations of steroid use and bad personality disorder.
That’s right — Bonds apparently isn’t all that likable. Well, neither was Ted Williams, another legendary hitter. That doesn’t disqualify either man from the record books.
The doping allegation is more serious. But even with his steroid cloud, or asterisk, you have to acknowledge Bonds as one of the greatest athletes ever.
Plenty of other baseball players have used performance-enhancing drugs who haven’t begun to match Bonds’ achievements at the plate. Clearly, he has inherent skills and drive and focus that don’t come from drugs. He still has to get up there and hit the ball, game after game.
Give the man his due. He’s earned his batting laurels.
A much bigger scandal, it seems to me, is the one involving NBA referee Tony Donaghy, whose alleged mob ties and game-fixing strike at the very heart of the integrity of the sport.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
“Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms,” two analysts with the liberal-leaning Brookings Institute wrote in the New York Times this week. Michael E. O’Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack have harshly criticized the Bush administration for its “miserable handling of Iraq,” but meeting with American and Iraqi military personnel, they saw “the potential to produce not necessarily ‘victory’ but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.” And though the analysts noted that the surge cannot go on forever, they concluded that “there is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Move over, Obama Girl and Hot4Hill Girl. There’s someone else who has a crush on a presidential candidate: Brownback Girl. Watch a music video spoof starring Bucky Walters with Richard Crowson and me as background dancers — well, sort of dancers.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona (in photo) told lawmakers last month that Bush administration political appointees blocked the release of health reports and scientific information that didn’t match their ideological views. Here is one example: William R. Steiger, an appointee with no background in medicine or public health but with long ties to President Bush and Vice President Cheney, blocked a report by Carmona on poverty and global health because it didn’t promote the Bush administration’s policy accomplishments, the Washington Post reported.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
“I’m a big fan of Al’s,” Vice President Dick Cheney said about Attorney General Alberto Gonzeles in the radio interview this week. “. . . I think Al has done a good job under difficult circumstances. The debate between he and the Senate is something they’re going to have to resolve. But I think he has testified truthfully.” Cheney also said that Gonzales could still be effective as attorney general, even though many lawmakers from both parties believe he has lost credibility, the Washington Post reported. “I think the key is whether or not he has the confidence of the president, and he clearly does,” Cheney said.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
