Democrats rightly complained about how long Republicans, led by Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., were taking to investigate what went wrong with the prewar intelligence on Iraq. Now, Republicans including Roberts are rightly complaining about how long Democrats are taking on the same Senate Intelligence Committee "Phase II" investigation. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., who succeeded Roberts as chairman, said early this year that he wanted the report out by summer. Last week, he said it’s "chugging along very nicely," according to Congressional Quarterly’s CQ Today.
A statement from Roberts’ office cried foul at the apparent double standard: "The Democrats now control both houses of Congress. They are free to conduct whatever investigations they care to conduct. They are free to issue whatever reports they wish to issue. What a difference an election makes. Gone is the outrage. Gone are the smoking guns. And Phase II is nowhere to be found. The only thing different this time around is that nobody seems to care. Why is that?"
Whatever the reason, Americans should demand the vital report sooner rather than any later. Yes, the issue is complex, but three years is long enough.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Sam Brownback didn’t have enough support to be a contender in the GOP presidential nomination race. But he had a strong ground operation in Iowa and impeccable pro-life credentials that could benefit any candidate he endorses. So there’s a buzz about the fact that Brownback is meeting with Rudy Giuliani today in Washington, D.C., to talk about abortion. Just last week, Brownback predicted Giuliani would not be the nominee because "he’s not pro-life."
Ross K. Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University, told the Hill newspaper: "Brownback is very well- respected. It would give a lot of social conservatives and evangelicals cover if they want to support Giuliani."
Meanwhile, Giuliani has been catching grief from the New York City tabloids for saying that he was rootingfor the Boston Red Sox to win the World Series.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
It’s good news that civilian and military deaths in Iraq are down for the second month in a row. The U.S. military surge appears to be having an impact in lessening violence and putting al-Qaida in Iraq on the run.
Our troops are doing their job. But what about the politicians?
As New York Times columnist Tom Friedman argues, the decline in violence does not add up to success in Iraq without a political breakthrough.
“It still feels to me as if we’ve made Iraq just safe enough for its politicians to be obstinate, corrupt or reckless on our dime,” he writes. Without a unified Iraqi government, “there is no one systematically consolidating whatever gains the surge has made.”
Posted by Randy Scholfield
The DREAM bill before Congress is an easy way for our country to redeem, in some small way, the immigration fiasco we find ourselves in. The bill, which failed a crucial test Wednesday in the Senate, would allow eligible children — those who entered the country before the age of 16, have lived here for five years and have graduated from high school — to be granted legal status for six years. At that point, if the immigrant had spent two years in college, he would become eligible for legalization.
This bill wouldn’t open the borders. It simply would open the door of opportunity to young immigrants who were brought here and want to better themselves and their families.
Posted by Kristin Mehler
Valerie Plame Wilson finally has her say, sort of, on the CIA leak case in the memoir “Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House.” (The CIA redacted many lines of her manuscript, which appear blacked out in the book.) Among those singled out for criticism is Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., then-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. She was especially angered by a “horrifying” report by committee Republicans Roberts, Orrin Hatch of Utah and Kit Bond of Missouri. It concluded that Plame Wilson had suggested the CIA send her husband to Niger to check out claims that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium, and that his trip confirmed the claims. “In the coming months,” she writes, “many reliable sources told us that before the report was issued, there was considerable collusion between the vice president’s office and Senator Pat Roberts on how to craft the report and its content. So much for checks and balances and the separation of powers.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
John McCain’s vow to follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell has become a signature line. He embellished it this week, telling more than 100 employees at a New Hampshire gun factory that he’d “bring Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell and shoot him with one of your products.”
After the applause, he added, “But only after he receives justice.” Then he said later to reporters, “I wouldn’t actually shoot him myself.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
