Iraq report

The General Accounting Office (GAO), an investigative arm of Congress, offers a dour assessment of progress - or the lack thereof - in Iraq. Heres the report in graphical form.

Here's a blurb from the Washington Post:

Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration.

The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form on Tuesday, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. They are expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some promise for political reconciliation in Iraq.

Tomorrow (Friday, September 1, 2007) is the big day!

Senator John Warner will announce tomorrow whether or not he plans to run for reelection.

Virginia Transportation Issues

Uh oh: As Dulles Rail Staggers, Players Share in Blame
Delays, Cost Run-Ups and a Threatened Loss of Funds Combine to Cloud the Project's Future.
Help is on the way?

The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, looking for more lobbying muscle to help secure federal approval for the troubled Dulles rail project, is negotiating with former U.S. transportation secretary Norman Y. Mineta to represent the agency.

Mineta, 75, is vice chairman of Hill & Knowlton, the communications and lobbying firm, where he advises clients on transportation and national security issues. He joined the company after leaving the Bush administration in July 2006.

Regional tax increases are deemed legal, which should help improve commuter woes in Northern VA. At least, that's the goal. Is it worth it?
From WP:

An Arlington County Circuit Court judge upheld the constitutionality yesterday of a new state law allowing the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority to impose taxes and issue bonds to finance as much as $300 million a year in regional highway and transit projects.

Circuit Court Judge Benjamin N.A. Kendrick ruled that nothing in the state or U.S. constitutions blocks the General Assembly from allowing a regional authority to assess taxes. And the panel's members are not required to be elected directly by Northern Virginia voters, he ruled. The decision was a defeat for opponents of higher taxes and the Loudoun County government.

Great articles on American politics

NOTE: The articles linked to below may not be accessible via these links. These are access points for general readers and may require subscriptions. However, NOVA students should have electronic access to the articles via the NOVA Library. Click HERE to access the NOVA Library.

Two recent articles are particularly fascinating. Joshua Green wrote an interesting piece in the Atlantic Monthly on Karl Rove's failure to transform the American party system, or to even succeed at getting most of his and President Bush's initiatives passed into law. Useful is his overview of the various realignments in American political party systems. Here is a particularly interesting quote on the pettiness that is often politics:

Dick Armey, the House Republican majority leader when Bush took office ..., told me a story that captures the exquisite pettiness of most members of Congress and the arrogance that made Bush and Rove so inept at handling them. “For all the years he was president,” Armey told me, “Bill Clinton and I had a little thing we’d do where every time I went to the White House, I would take the little name tag they give you and pass it to the president, who, without saying a word, would sign and date it. Bill Clinton and I didn’t like each other. He said I was his least-favorite member of Congress. But he knew that when I left his office, the first schoolkid I came across would be given that card, and some kid who had come to Washington with his mama would go home with the president’s autograph. I think Clinton thought it was a nice thing to do for some kid, and he was happy to do it.” Armey said that when he went to his first meeting in the White House with President Bush, he explained the tradition with Clinton and asked the president if he would care to continue it. “Bush refused to sign the card. Rove, who was sitting across the table, said, ‘It would probably wind up on eBay,’” Armey continued. “Do I give a damn? No. But can you imagine refusing a simple request like that with an insult? It’s stupid. From the point of view of your own self-interest, it’s stupid. I was from Texas, and I was the majority leader. If my expectations of civility and collegiality were disappointed, what do you think it was like for the rest of the congressmen they dealt with? The Bush White House was tone-deaf to the normal courtesies of the office.”

An article well worth reading to understand current American politics and some American political history.

Here's a fantastic article about Rudy Giuliani. By Peter Boyer of the New Yorker.

Fred Thompson

Will he or will he not? Is it too late? Does he have the energy or, more importantly, the money?
Thompson, a likely candidate for the 2008 GOP nomination, talks about his lackluster performance so far. He may have let too much time pass since the hype of his potential candidacy to the point when he finally announces. Many Republicans are not happy with their field of candidates, and Thompson could have really stepped into fill that need, but he may have missed the point of optimal impact.

More on Senator Craig

Funny point made in the National Review's The Corner:

Leaving my obvious disgust aside for a moment, my first thought on this Larry Craig bathroom thing is how rotten a job that plainclothes officer has. The second is that we may have another vacant Senate seat in a few days.

The prime candidate, in the event that Craig resigns, is Lt. Gov. Jim Risch (R), who was widely expected to run for the seat anyway. Risch stepped aside to let Butch Otter (R) take the nomination and win as governor last year. In some sense Otter left him little choice by announcing his own candidacy so early, but the perception is that it's Risch's turn now. He could even be in better shape running as the incumbent.

Here's the article from Roll Call newspaper that originally uncovered the story. Roll Call is one of two newspapers that focuses on all things Capitol Hill and Congress.

A few big names in the conservative blogosphere are quite frustrated with Craig: Hugh Hewitt calls for his resignation; and Ed Morrissey believes that Craig should not seek reelection.

More on the Gonzales resignation

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board offers the conservative response to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Bizzare story

This story might get bigger in the coming days. From the Washington Post:

Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho pleaded guilty this month to misdemeanor disorderly conduct after being arrested at the Minneapolis airport.

Attorney General Gonzales Quits

According to most media reports, including the Washington Post, Gonzales told President Bush of his desire to resign on Friday. Some have said that Michael Chertoff will be nominated as the new AG. Time will tell.

Sen. Warner on the Iraq War

Senator John Warner, R-VA, is an important fellow to watch for a few reasons:
1) He represents Virginia.
2) He hasn't yet announced whether or not he will run for reelection next year. That announcement, according to Warner, should come in early September.
3) He is pushing the Administration to embrace modest proposals to decrease the US military presence in Iraq.
You can hear what Warner has to say for himself: he was the featured guest on NBC's Meet the Press, and the entire episode can be viewed online. The round table with NBC's Richard Engel, NYTime's Michael Gordon, and Washington Post's Thomas Ricks is well worth watching too.
Washington Posts write-up on their blog, The Talk.

Some Iraq news

New National Intelligence Estimate.
Some VERY different views on how things are going there, or how US leaders depict the situation:
Jim Hoagland.
Charles Krauthammer.
Big news from Virginia's GOP US Senator, John Warner:

Sen. John W. Warner, one of the most influential Republican voices in Congress on national security, called on President Bush yesterday to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq in time for Christmas as a new intelligence report concluded that political leaders in Baghdad are "unable to govern effectively."

Warner's declaration -- after the Virginia senator's recent four-day trip to the Middle East -- roiled the political environment ahead of a much-anticipated progress report to be delivered Sept. 11 by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. Although Warner had already broken with Bush's strategy, this was the first time he endorsed pulling troops out by a specific date.

March on Washington

A March on Washington will take place on September 15.
The goal is to end the war.
For more information, here are a few contacts:
www.answercoalition.org

Where there's a Will, there's an op-ed

George Will is an interesting cat: a conservative who was quite doubtful about the wisdom of invading Iraq. In today's Washington Post, he offers an excellent analysis of both sides of the Washington battle to interpret and act upon the September Petraeus/White House report on the state of Iraq.

Consider this blurb:

One faction -- essentially, congressional Democrats -- is heavily invested in the belief, fervently held by the party's base of donors and activists, that prolonging U.S. involvement can have no benefit commensurate with the costs. The war, this faction says, is lost because even its repeatedly and radically revised objective -- a stable society under a tolerable regime -- is beyond America's military capacity and nation-building competence, and it is politically impossible given the limits of American patience.

The other faction, equal in anger and certitude, argues, not for the first time (remember the transfer of sovereignty to Iraq, Iraqi voters' purple fingers, the Iraqi constitution, the killing of Saddam Hussein's sons, the capture of Hussein, the killing of Zarqawi, etc.), that the tide has turned. How febrile is this faction? Recently it became euphoric because of a New York Times column by two Brookings Institution scholars...

One is left to wonder how much the report REALLY matters. Will it change anyone's mind about whether or not the US is succeeding there, or whether or not the US should stay? Read the whole op-ed.

Interesting article regarding Karl Rove's recent comments on a Hillary candidacy. Negative ratings she may have, but not insurmountable - so says Gallup.
See THIS.